Hokage's heir
by Drakenn
Summary: What would happen if Naruto was heir of Senju brothers and Yondaime. Along with being chosen by Sandaime to be his heir. AU I don't own Naruto
1. Chapter 1

A/N: My second story, it will have lower priority than Sharingan Siblings and I'm writing it mainly to writesomething else than Naruto with Sharingan. Which is cool thing, but a little overpowered. I don't own Naruto Kishi does.

Revelations

Small boy was running through Konoha and all trees and plants looked withered, like they were sad that something happened. By most people it was shrugged off as freak of nature. But by not everybody. Sandaime Hokage Sarutobi Hiruzen saw this happening when his teacher Senju Hashirama was sad or angry. Only one Kekkei Genkai could do that, fabled power of Senju Hashirama – Mokuton. Kekkei Genkai which was able to suppress bijuu chakra and was as strong as Uchiha Sharingan.

„Looks like young Naruto has Mokuton." He murmured and looked at his ANBU „Get me Tenzo."

Few moments later ANBU with Tora mask entered Hokage office and he was as shocked as Hokage. He too felt this change in trees and plants all over Konoha.

„Mokuton user?" simply asked ANBU and Hokage nodded

„Very strong affinity to it. Maybe even stronger than Hashirama-sensei. If he's feeling so sad that leaves and plants wither there's only one person." Replied Hokage and looked at his ANBU whose eyes widened.

„You don't mean Uzumaki Naruto?" quietly asked Tora

„Yes. Only he can be so sad to cause plants to wither. I will find him and we will meet him. You will be his teacher till he graduate, later you will split his time with his jonin sensei." Said Hokage and took out his all seeing orb. He placed his hand on orb and channeled some chakra to locate Naruto. Few moments later it showed small boy in tattered clothes standing near large empty compound. „He is near Senju compound. Let's go."

* * *

Meanwhile Naruto was running away from mob and finished his escape in front of Senju compound. Where he felt something familiar calling him inside, like it was his. He wasn't the most educated boy, due to being shunned and badly treated, but even he recognized trident visible over the gates. It was sign of Senju Ichizoku.

„Naruto!" shouted someone from behind him. He quickly turned around and saw Hokage with one of his ANBU.

„Yes jiji?" asked Naruto, happy that Hokage found him

„Did you learn how to channel chakra in the Academy?" asked Hokage, once he greeted Naruto

„Yes. But why you're asking?" Replied blonde boy

„Channel your chakra into this paper" said Hokage and gave him chakra sensitive paper. Naruto channeled his chakra into it and Hokage eyes widened when he saw results. It splitted into two parts which sprouted few leaves.

„Impossible. First natural Mokuton user from times of my sensei." Murmured Hokage, not believing his eyes. „You're lucky boy. You have Shodaime Hokage Kekkei Genkai Mokuton. Which means you're Senju heir."

„What?" shouted Naruto

„Yes. That's right you're descendant of one of founding clans of Konoha and I think it's time to break genjutsu placed on you." Said Hokage and placed his hand on Naruto forehead and channeled small amount of chakra into Naruto system. Thus interrupting flow of it and thus breaking illusion. When it was gone Naruto was one or two inches taller. On his forehead appeared small violet rectangle and on his face appeared same three marks that adorned Nidaime face.

„Are those Nidaime marks?" asked shocked Tora

„Yes. Naruto take a look." Said Hokage and gave boy small mirror

„What happened to my body?" shouted Naruto, when he noticed changes in body look

„We hid those features, so you could be safe during your childhood, at least from kidnapping or assassins." Calmly said Hokage „Tora I want you to train Naruto during those four years that he has before graduation. I feel that in Senju compound you will find a lot of useful things. Naruto you won't need to be in Academy until last year of it, but instead Tora will prepare you for life of Shinobi. I will also teach you ways of politics and diplomacy. Honestly speaking you're my best choice as my successor. You're unpolished gem right now, that needs to be molded and polished." Quietly said Hokage, while pushing open doors to Senju compound

„Cool. Thanks Jiji" Said Naruto, while walking behind Hokage and into Senju compound. „This is all mine?" he quietly asked

„Yes. I will get all paperwork done today. So you can move here. Tomorrow you will start your training with Tenzo." Hokage looked at ANBU „Take off your mask."

„Hai" Replied Tora/Tenzo and removed him mask „Naruto, I will be here in the morning. Now you have time to explore compound." After he finished that Tenzo disappeared and left Naruto with Hokage.

„It looks amazing" Said Naruto in voice full of awe. Compound was big and full of plans and trees, which reacted weirdly to his chakra. They started blossom immediately and grow. „What's going on?" he asked pointing at plants that suddenly blossomed

„Your chakra Naruto-kun did all of this. My sensei Shodaime Hokage caused same reaction wherever he went. I remember that when I mastered first jutsu that he taught me **Doton – Doryuheki** (Earth Wall), he was so happy that whole Konoha looked like garden for next few weeks." Said Hiruzen and looked at Naruto, who looked happy and that explained why those trees behaved so weirdly.

„What's that?" asked Naruto pointing to doors that were in front of them and were locked with blood seal

„Hmm, there was Tobirama, or Hashirama study or maybe one of libraries. Cut your finger and press blood against lock." Told him Hokage and doors unlocked almost immediately after contact with Naruto chakra.

„How? Why? When?" asked stunned Naruto, shocked by doors opening after contact with your blood

„Blood seal. You're descendant of Senju Tobirama so I'm not shocked by it. Let's see what's inside" Replied Hiruzen and gently pressed doors which revealed big circular room. Completely made out different types of wood, walls were made out of darker shades of wood with honeycomb structure full of scrolls in it. Floor was made out of polished light wood with twenty beams made out of darker one coming from middle of room, where was large sculptured pillar of wood with giant scroll inside and smaller one to the left. Bigger one had Senju trident and Uchiha fan placed on it. Roof was made out of darker wood, but with twenty distinctive beams made out of light, almost white wood, coming from central pillar. On the other side of room, opposite to the doors was armor stand with blue plate armor with fur collar, happuri was laying on small cushion besides it and small scroll was laying on another one.

„It's Senju brothers library. Brothers known to you as Shodai and Nidaime Hokage. That armor and happuri in the back of the room belonged to my sensei Nidaime. But that huge scroll in this pillar is Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara jutsu scroll. It was part of agreement between them during creation of Konoha to share their jutsu and clan ones between them, so they created scroll and gave one copy to Uchiha and second to Senju. Smaller one is Senju Hashirama Mokuton jutsu and other personal jutsu." Said Hokage and Naruto eyes widened. He carefully approached happuri of Nidaime and lifted it from cushion on which it was laying. It felt right in his hands, like it was part of him and now it was returning to proper owner.

„I don't know why and how, but it feels right in my hands." Quietly said Naruto once he lifted it

„You're his heir, so I'm not shocked. Explore compound on your own. I need to get back and finish paperwork for today. On weekends I will teach you ways of diplomacy, etiquette and politics. So you will be prepared for being announced as my heir. Do not tell about it, I don't want more headaches right now." Hokage said and ruffled Naruto hairs.

* * *

When Tenzo returned on next day he was surprised to find Naruto reading scroll that he found in Senju library. He never thought to see this child so focused and quiet. He always was giant yellow ball of energy.

„Hey Naruto" he said loud enough for him to hear and get his attention

„Hey Tenzo-sensei" Replied Naruto and put scroll on ground to his right.

„I will mostly train you in all aspects of shinobi arts, but for that we need some basics to work upon. So first thing I will teach you one of clone jutsu, that's designed for your chakra capacity. It's **Kage Bunshin** and you only need one handseal, which looks like this." Said Tenzo and put his hands in cross like form. „Normally it's taught to jonin and some chunin, but because of your chakra reserves which are one of biggest in the village it will help us greatly."

„How it can help us? I'm miserable with **Bunshin** , I never could perform it properly." Moaned Naruto

„You have too much chakra and too little control for such jutsu. It's Academy jutsu for a reason, it requires almost no chakra, so most of people with big amount of it have troubles with it." Answered Yamato „Kage Bunshin is jonin level for a reason, it requires much more chakra, so you won't have any problems. Now make one and tell it to go with my clone." Ordered Yamato and made clone which took Naruto clone to distant tree. It whispered something into it's ear and punched it, thus dispelling.

„That hurt." Murmured Naruto and his eyes widened „Oryginal body learns everything that clone learn." He said way louder

„Yes. That's the whole advantage of it. It can learn only memories, so you can't use it for physical training, but you can use it for taijustu training. Since muscle memory is just memory. Now make around hundred clones and we will start." Told him Yamato and waited for clones, once they were done he started second part of his explanation „Naruto you have monstrous chakra reserves and they will get only bigger. So you need to master chakra control, Senju clan had good control, but even it won't be good without training. First thing is tree walking or as I like to call it tree climbing without hands. You use chakra to stick to its surface. Too little and you won't stick and too much you will be thrown back. Order sixty to work on it and after twenty minutes start dispelling them in tens, make five minutes delay between doing that. Order twenty to do same thing, but on water, it's harder because you need to constantly fine tune strength of pulses. Dispel them them in pairs after twenty minutes. Do that with ten minutes intervals, last ten will go with my clone and start working on taijustu, while you will go shopping with me." Said Tenzo and clones nodded and went to do what they were ordered to.

„You know that I'm kicked out of almost all stores?" quietly asked Naruto

„Yes. That's a reason why I'm coming with you. Before you couldn't use certain shops, but since I'm with you owners won't care and once I mention your heritage they will or at least should be friendly. But you also changed a lot, those three Nidaime marks and that seal on your forehead." Said Yamato and motioned for Naruto to follow him.

They left the compound and outside of it was shinobi district and clan compounds, excluding Aburame and Inuzuka which had them close to walls and forests outside of village. To the left was road leading to Hokage tower, Academy and some training fields that were used by shinobi and Academy students. But main and biggest training fields were outside of Konoha walls and near walls, so shinobi training couldn't interfere with normal activities.

However they turned right and went towards market district, to be exact part of it tending to needs of shinobi and clans. They were selling best equipment and supplies, also owners usually were retired shinobi or clan members. So they knew what ninja needed and knew what was best for them, quality to price ratio was also quite good. Of course it wasn't cheap weapon, but considering that most of things were crafted or manufactured out of finest quality chakra metal, steel, wood and cloth it was rather reasonable. There was also good chance to find some unique weapons or artifacts belonging to legendary shinobi from past.

„Naruto I understand that you love orange, but for shinobi it's bad color. It's usual bright, flashy and hard to conceal, better is even red which is at least darker and can be mistaken for blood or some leaves. So first thing is change of your outfit. Best place would be here, along with weapons. Higurashi Ninja Stores." Said Yamato and pointed to large store it front of them.

„Is it only me or people are looking at me differently?" quietly asked Naruto, after he noticed glares from people. They weren't filled with hate, most of them were just curiosity and interest.

„They're looking differently. After all it's shinobi part of village and shinobi usual don't have prejudices against comrades, they can kill you on battlefield." Replied Yamato and they entered shop which was full of weapons, ninja clothes, supplies and other necessary things for ninja.

* * *

„Yamato-san" Greeted them rather bulky and high man standing behind counter. He had brown hairs and blue friendly eyes, but there was also hint of steel in them. That suggested that he was shinobi in his past „And who is that boy?"

„Higurashi-san how would you react that heir to Senju was found." Quietly asked Yamato and Higurashi eyes widened a little. Especially after he took a longer look at Naruto. Same shape of face, same regal grace, same marks as Nidaime, similar body shape. But also that seal on his forehead was sign of him belonging to Senju, only they have chakra control and capacity to pull that off at this age.

„So how can I help?" asked after a while owner of shop

„Full change of outfit for him. Propably one that will be used under Senju armor, hand guards made out of chakra conductive metal, few hundred chakra metal shuriken and kunai and dozens of training ones. Five sets of Fuma shuriken, dozen meters of ninja wire and I think that's all." Finished Yamato and Naruto eyes widened. That was going to be his, it was also top quality one, chakra metal was expensive and that numbers normally would depleted almost any purse.

„Wow. Just wow. Only weapons will be costing you around five hundred ryo per piece. So only shuriken and kunai will cost you around five hundred thousand ryo for five hundred of each. Training ones are cheap so only around fifty thousand for them. Fuma shuriken around fifty thousand for set and you want five, so another two hundred and fifty thousand, ninja wire another ten thousand. Hard guards another one hundred thousand. That's only weapons and hand guards. Who is funding this? Last time I remember similar order when ANBU was refreshing their armory. But anyways nine hundred and ten thousand for weapons and hand guards. For clothes Naruto come with me." Finished Higurashi and motioned Naruto to follow him

„Senju clan is paying for this, you know that their treasury wasn't used in twenty or thirty years and was only growing. And he as heir of clan can spent it when needed." Replied Yamato just before Naruto and Higurashi disappeared in other part of shop.

„So you want to use plate armor?" he asked Naruto

„Yes Higurashi-san" Replied boy and looked around

„Don't use Higurashi-san. I think you will be frequent customer so feel free to use my name Takeshi." Said now named Higurashi Takeshi

„Okay. But why it matters if I want to use plate armor?" asked Naruto

„Because clothes that are used with plate armor are different than normal ones. They're thicker and made from different, harder and lighter materials. Also mesh armor worn under it is thicker and tightly woven. Along with that there is difference in placement of clan symbols." Explained Higurashi and motioned Naruto to follow him into part of store with ANBU clothes. „Your clan colors were dull red, black and deep, dark blue. So I think those ones will be best." He said pointing to large stash of dark blue t-shirts with Senju sign on them. Two were on end of short sleeves, while third one was on back of shirt, there were also laying black sweatpants with blue additions.

„Yes. So ten of those and maybe ten or twenty of black ones as well?" suggested Naruto

„Why not. Now about mesh armor. Normally it's loosely woven, but that one won't work in this case. You will need one designed for ANBU usage, it's tightly woven and durable, it also has space for inserting additional pieces of armor." Said Higurashi once he grabbed those pieces mentioned before and walked with Naruto toward area where was only armor and various pieces of it. „Last but not least hand guards. I would opt for full length one with gloves. While half ones aren't bad you need to be careful with them. Try those" he said and gave Naruto ones with Senju sign on them

„Not bad. I like them" Replied Naruto once he tried them, they fit him and looked nice. Also gloves that were with them covered his hand and gave additional protection, but didn't limit range of his movements, they almost felt like second layer of skin.

„Good. I think that's all that you need for now. So head back and see what Yamato found, while we were rummaging here." Said Higurashi and guided Naruto to place from which they started.

„So Naruto did you find everything?" asked Yamato, once he saw them emerging from clothing section

„Yes" Naruto nodded and walked to Yamato

„Overall. It will cost you a lot. Something like million and two hundred thousand ryo." Replied Takeshi and waited for Yamato to pay for it „It's pleasure doing business with you."

„Yeah. But paying so much money isn't funny" grunted Yamato and walked out of shop with Naruto. Senju were rich clan and owned a lot of land in Konoha and Hi no Kuni, but even their treasures had some bottom.

„Any more shopping needs to be done?" asked him Naruto once they were yet again on the street.

„No. For now that's all. All necessary books should be in Senju library and if they're missing there's always Hokage one." Replied jonin.

* * *

They returned to compound where most of clones finished dispelling and only few remained, but first they stopped for small lunch in one of restaurants in shinobi district But even those clones that remained were running only on fumes of chakra and we're going to dispel on their own in next few minutes.

„Change into those new clothes, dispel clones and be back here in let's say twenty minutes." Said Yamato and started thinking. _„Weapon handling or taijustu katas. Or both. Why not both, he has enough chakra for another few hundred clones, so two hundred will try water walking, another two tree climbing and fifty on taijustu katas. While original one will work with me on weapon handling."_

Yamato didn't have a chance to finish thinking, before he heard footsteps on porch leading to place were he was sitting. Out of compound emerged completely changed Naruto he now sported black sweatpants, tied around his ankles by white bandages, from under which were visible traces of mesh armor. On his torso was blue t-shirt with Senju clan signs and under it was visible mesh armor and on his hands were hand guards and gloves.

„You look good. Almost like shinobi. If I didn't know you before, I would say that you're completely new person." Carefully said Yamato

„Thanks sensei. So what do we do now?" asked him Naruto who was once again full of energy.

„Make four hundred and fifty clones. Two hundred will work on water walking, two hundred on tree walking, while fifty will go with my clone to train taijustu." Said Yamato before he made clone on his own and took fifty clones with him.

„What do you want to do with me?" asked original one, when they were alone

„Weapon handling. I don't trust Academy to teach anything properly from time when civilians took it over. So I will show it for you from beginning, with addition of few things that I learned in ANBU." Said Yamato and gave Naruto few kunai

„They feel good. Those in Academy were much heavier and not so well balance. They felt wrong." Said Naruto once he took them and held them in his hand.

„What do you mean by wrong?" asked him Yamato and signaled for hidden ANBU to get closer. They were quietly searching for evidence that Academy was trying to teach him wrong and giving him faulty weapon could be example of it. He already noticed several mistakes in taijustu katas that Naruto performed and it could only be cause by intentional actions on teachers behalf. And his clone was busy fixing them.

„They felt like they weren't balanced at all. They were either too heavy or too light and from what I know all of them should be around same mass." Replied Naruto and Yamato eyes widened slightly. _„I will need to talk with Hokage about it. That's nice piece of evidence, one night I might exchange whole Academy stash of kunai for normal ones and give them to few friends in ANBU to check them. When they will have troubles handling them it means that they're faulty."_ He thought, while same thought were running through head of ANBU that was watching over them.

„Yes. They should be around same mass. Try those that you have in your hand. Aim for my kunai" Said Yamato before throwing his kunai into bark of tree that was around ten meters from them.

Naruto followed suit and those five that he had in hand struck home in various distance from tree. Two of them landed almost on top of Yamato kunai, while rest flew wild.

„I never saw that bad aim. I guess we need to throw everything that Academy taught you out of window. And start from very beginning." Murmured Yamato. „Okay. I saw few minor flaws and one major. Never throw when inhaling, do that when exhaling." He added loudly

„In the Academy they taught us to do that when inhaling." Said Naruto and Yamato eyes widened even more. That was rather clear example of what they were searching for and Hokage wasn't generous when someone attacked his family or did something wrong to them.

„They were wrong. When doing that when inhaling you slightly change path of flight, while doing it when exhaling you give it slightly more force. Try it again." Said Yamato and Naruto took five more kunai and throw them. This time they were much closer to kunai that Yamato used to mark middle of target.

„That's better. Way better in fact. There are some minor flaws, but they should correct on their own. Try same thing with shuriken." Told him Yamato. Naruto took ten shuriken and throw them at the target, one after another. They ended up close to desired middle of target.

„I don't believe it. I always had problems with throwing at Academy." Said Naruto and shook his head few times. He looked happier than before, everything started going better than in Academy and sensei was friendly and focused on him.

„Well. Maybe you were just badly taught, why it might happen Hokage will explain to you. Now I think it's time for you to learn first elemental jutsu and elemental manipulation. For elemental manipulation make hundred clones and tell fifty to soak leaf using only chakra and other fifty to make it crumble." Told Yamato and clones went to work on it, while original one was left with Yamato.

„I remember that in Academy they told us that there are few natures and each is weaker against one and stronger against other." Said Naruto

„That's right." Said Yamato and quickly draw diagram that showed it. Katon(Fire) was weak against Suiton(Water), but strong against Fuuton(Wind). Fuuton was weak against Katon, but strong against Raiton(Lightning). Raiton was weak against Fuuton, but strong against Doton(Earth). Which is weak against Raiton, but strong against Suiton. Last but not least Suiton is weak against Doton, but strong against Katon. „There are also Kekkei Genkai and other bloodlines. For you important to know is that Mokuton that you have is created by mixing Doton and Suiton chakra. It's good to learn what are other Kekkei Genkai and how they look, so you know how to fight against them. But for now you don't need it."

„Why those exercises that my clones are doing are so important?" asked Naruto

„Because they're helping you with control of your chakra and we won't start Mokuton till you master Doton and Suiton. For next two weeks your clones will work on chakra control and nature manipulation. While second group will work on throwing speed, accuracy, taijustu katas and any weapon/weapons you want to master. Your original will work with me on physical training, chakra theory, trap building and other miscellaneous things." Said Yamato

„I think I like it." Replied Naruto

„Good. You will do that during weeks. Weekends are for you to relax and do what you want." Finished Yamato and they continue to work on basics for few more hours. They didn't even notice flow of time and it was already evening, so Yamato bid farewell and Naruto dragged himself to one of bedrooms inside compound.

* * *

-Time Skip-

Weekend

„Naruto-kun how are you?" asked Hokage once he entered Senju compound

„Jiji! I'm quite good" Replied Naruto, who emerged from one of rooms in his new outfitted, which shocked Hokage. He could never imagine Naruto wearing something else that his obnoxious orange kill me jumpsuit. But somehow Yamato convinced him to change it and with this one he looked like a shinobi. He also reminded him Senju Tobirama, he almost looked like him, only his eyes and hairs were different. Tobirama was albino and as such he had red eyes and white hairs.

„What did Yamato to you that you changed outfit?" asked Hiruzen

„I realized that I need to grow up. That orange is anything, but not ninja suited. Also it would look silly with that armor." He relied

„Good. I thought that you would like to use Tobirama-sensei armor. Now follow me to one of rooms that you propably didn't see yet." Said Hokage and disappeared with Naruto in maze of corridors inside of compound. When they emerged from it they stood in front of large brightly lit room with various maps pinned to walls and multiple scrolls laying on shelves. On floor of the room was large plush beige carpet with Uchiha fan, Uzumaki swirl and Senju trident around Konoha symbol. Leaf.

„What was here? I feel calm and my mind is focused here." Asked Naruto, while looking around

„Senju Hashirama study and first Hokage office. I intentionally took you here. So I can explain to you basic world diplomacy and your heritage. Full heritage. I also know that there will be no moles here." Said Hokage and sat on one of comfortable couches that were around the room placed in twos and three. „What do you want to learn first? World diplomacy or your full heritage?"

„My full heritage." Replied Naruto, while he was looking around. He already liked this room. He felt like there was some sort of barrier around it, keyed to specific type of blood, so only chosen people could enter it. _„I need to ask Jiji about those barriers. I could sense few of them around compound and one that is around whole building."_ He thought

„About your heritage. Your mother was Red Hot Blooded Habanero or Red Death, depends on who you ask. Uzumaki Kushina, last from Uzumaki clan from Uzushiogakure. She died on day of your birth after Kyubi was ripped from her. Your father was Namikaze Minato Yondaime Hokage, better known as Kiiroi Senko. Who was grandson of Senju Tobirama. We kept your heritage as secret so you could have relatively safe childhood. At least without assasins and kidnapping attempt on daily basis." Finished Hokage and Naruto on one hand was angry, yet on another was happy that he was descendant of such noble clans.

„You said that Kyubi was ripped from my mother. And I read some scrolls in library here and there was mentioned term jinchuuriki. So that means that my mother was jinchuuriki?" quietly asked Naruto and Hokage only nodded.

„I'm no master in fuinjutsu, but when woman is giving birth to child seal is greatly weakened and demon can be easily ripped from it, killing his host in the process. I wonder if you can guess previous jinchuuriki and current one." Explained Hokage and looked at Naruto, his expression sad and somber.

„From what I read previous one was Senju Mito, wife of Shodai Hokage. While current one I would say that I am. Those all insults, calling me demon child, accusing me of deaths caused by Kyubi etc. Suggest only me." Quietly said Naruto and looked at Hokage anger visible in his voice.

„Yes. Your father wanted you to be called hero, but I failed him. I created law banning older population from talking about Kyubi to younger, so you could have happy childhood, but I yet again failed. Your father was man of honor and he could only use his son as jinchuuriki. He believed that if he can't sacrifice his own son, he couldn't ask anybody to sacrifice their." Explained to him Hokage in soothing voice, trying to calm down Naruto

„I understand that. But I'm not happy with it. I was insulted, killed multiple times, scolded for no reason, kicked out of classes, treated like trash my whole life." Said Naruto, some anger visible in his voice. But not as much as before, he managed to calm himself down.

„I understand that. If you want you may tell about it your trusted people. But be careful with who you want to tell it. It may strengthen your bonds with that person, or destroy them completely." Warned him Hokage and took out small box from his robes „Those are things that your parents wanted to give you."

„Thank you Jiji" managed to whisper Naruto while he carefully opened box that he received from Hokage. Inside of it were six scrolls and one kunai. But it wasn't normal one it was one of famous Hiraishin kunai that made Yondaime famous. After he saw it his eyes widened visibly. He took out scrolls and placed them on table that was standing near couch. His put kunai besides scrolls and let it stay there

„Those two are jutsu scrolls" Said Hokage pointing to two bigger ones with red lines. „That one is storage scroll." He added pointing to middle sized one with black line running through middle of it and red ones alongside. „Last three are will and letters from your parents." He finished and pointed to three thin scrolls „But I can't understand why he would give you one of his Hiraishin kunai, unless he wants you to learn his jutsu." Added after a while

„I think I will read letter from them when I will be alone and my mind will be clear" Said Naruto before taking three thinnest scrolls and hiding them in one of pockets. After that he opened storage scroll and looked at Hokage unsure what to do.

„Channel small amount of chakra into it. That's storage scroll and that thing before your eyes is sealing matrix. They generally require some chakra and in some cases blood to open. In this case chakra will be enough." Explained Hokage and Naruto nodded and did that. When he did that there was small poof of smoke and on top of it were laying two swords. Katana was finely crafted with blade reinforced by many seals and image of lunging dragon was etched on it's blade. Guard of it was in form of open golden dragon mouth, from which blade emerged. Handle was made out of black wood in which diamond were encrusted and was covered by red silk ribbon. Scabbard was made out of dark wood, with steel reinforcements and Uzumaki swirl etched in it. Second sword was of the same design, but it's blade was almost black, instead of normal steel gray.

„Impossible" Murmured Hokage when he saw those swords and looked at Naruto. „Do you recognize them? You may read about them in scrolls about Shodai wars and alliance between Senju and Uzumaki."

„Are those blades of Shodai Uzukage?" quietly asked Naruto

„Yes. They ended up in possession of your mother right before she left Uzushiogakure and she carried them to Konoha." Explained Hokage and looked at Naruto, who just nodded.

„I always wanted to learn bojutsu, along with kenjutsu. I read that Saru summoning contract was one used by Shodai Hokage. Do you know who is current wielder of it?" asked Naruto, with his classic puppy eyes. That worked on almost everybody.

„I happen to know that. In fact I'm sole owner of it and we may see if they will accept you as summoner." Said Hokage with thin smile visible on his face and ran through seals for some jutsu and shouted **„Kuchiyose no Jutsu"** there was large poof of smoke and in middle of room was standing large ape.

„Why did you summon me, Hiruzen?" asked that monkey „There are no enemies here"

„There are no, but I want to ask you if you would accept another summoner?" asked him Hiruzen

„Jiji, maybe some introductions first" interrupted them Naruto

„Ah, yes. Sorry about that Naruto-kun. That monkey is Monkey King Enma, he fought alongside your great grand uncle Senju Hashirama. Enma that boy that's sitting there is great grand nephew of your first summoner. His name is Senju Uzumaki Namikaze Naruto." Said Hiruzen and monkey took a long and careful look at Naruto

„I like him." Enma said and snapped his fingers and in front of him appeared giant scroll. Which was carefully unrolled by him. When he was done, he looked at Naruto and motioned for him to walk to it. „Sign your name with blood. Once you do that ran through seals Boar → Dog → Bird → Monkey → Ram and say Kuchiyose no Jutsu(Summoning)" Explained monkey.

Naruto kneeled, cut his finger and wrote his name in one of empty fields. Right besides Sarutobi Hiruzen, before Sarutobi Hiruzen were names of dozen Senju members and first one was Senju Hashirama.

„I, Inu, Tori, Saru, Hitsuji, **Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"** shouted Naruto and there was small poof of smoke. In front of him stood small monkey with golden fur and Konoha hitai-ate.

„Not bad. You summoned one of messengers." Said Hiruzen and motioned for that monkey to return to it's homeland, same with Enma.

„What about diplomacy and international politics?" asked Naruto, once they were once again alone.

„Ah, yes. I choose this room for today because it's perfect place to teach about it. There are maps and other necessary things." Said Hiruzen and motioned Naruto to follow him, when they were in front of large wall mounted map. He straightened a little and looked at Naruto. „Do you remember so called Great Five?" he asked him. That was one of basic things learned in Academy during first year.

„Kiri, Kumo, Iwa, Suna, Konoha" Replied Naruto and Hokage nodded

„That's correct. Only leader of those five can use Kage title. We are allies with Suna, we are neutral with Kiri. We are disliked by Kumo and hated by Iwa. That's mostly effect of last war. They got beaten so badly by your father that they hate him and anybody with blonde hairs." Said Hokage, slightly chuckling at the last part

„What? That's crazy." Murmured shocked Naruto and looked carefully at map and noticed more symbols. That weren't mentioned in the Academy at least on classes on which he was present. „What are those?" he asked pointing to symbol that looked like two halves of arrow pointing downwards.

„That one?" Hokage asked just to be sure and play a little with Naruto, who only nodded. „That's one of smaller villages, to be exact Taki. I thought that you were taught about them in Academy." He added with small frown.

„I wasn't present during that class." Said Naruto and Hokage nodded

„Okay. There are multiple smaller villages, but ones that are important in our world are Taki, Kusa and Ame. Ame because of their leader that lead them from beginning of Second War till now called Sanshōuo no Hanzō(Hanzo the Salamander). He managed to beat all of my students and he gave them Sannin title. Kusa because of location and jutsu collection. Taki because of Hero Water, drug that gave person that took it enormous amounts of chakra at the cost of his health and eventually life. There is also other factor taken into account when considering world diplomacy, if you stumbled onto jinchuuriki in scrolls. You should also find this one." Finished Hokage and looked at Naruto, who simple nodded

„Jinchuuriki?" he asked

„Yes. We have Kyubi, Suna has Ichibi, Kiri has Sanbi and Rokubi, Iwa Gobi and Yonbi, Kumo Nibi and Hachibi and finally Taki has Nanabi. They were distributed by Senju Hashirama to keep balance of power between villages." Said Hokage and Naruto nodded „I think for today that's enough. If you can for next week read those scrolls" added Hokage and gave Naruto few scrolls „They are about our village, who is in power, who has what rights and who is responsible for what. About Bojutsu and Kenjutsu I will try to arrange some teachers for you. Tenzo might teach you basics of kenjutsu, all ANBU know how to use swords."

Once Hokage left the compound Naruto went to his bedroom, which was located on second level of compound with beautiful view of Konoha and Hokage monument, it also had huge balcony. It was big room with plush carpet covering most of floor. In middle of it was black Senju trident, in light wood walls were multiple honeycomb style holes to store scrolls. There were also few closets and wardrobes to store clothes and other things. He also had weapon stand in the corner where he placed his new swords and where were his kunai and shuriken.

Naruto jumped onto his bed and opened letters from his mother and father.

* * *

„ _Dear Naruto-chan. If you're reading this it means that I died right after your birth. I want to say that I will be proud of you and I hope that you manage to grow into strong, yet caring man. We prepared for your birth and in this letters are few seals with useful scrolls for you. Training regime for you once you're old enough to use it. My fuinjutsu books and notes if you decide to study it. Your godparents are Jiraiya of Sannin and Inuzuka Tsume. If you want something from them show them this letter. They will help you in whatever you will need._

 _Namikaze née Uzumaki Kushina_

 _Your loving mother_

* * *

When Naruto finished reading scroll in corner of his eyes started gathering tears. For whole life he thought that he was orphan and now he learned that he had godparents and family. Family was dead but nonetheless he had some memoirs of them. After he finished reading it, he took closer look at the end of scroll where he spotted few storage seals. He needed to check them later.

* * *

„ _Dear Naruto-kun. If you're reading it, it means that I failed to protect you and Kushina-chan. I wrote it in case that during your birth something went wrong. Hiruzen was asked by me to give this letter only when you were 16 or your dormant Kekkei Genkai was awaken. I wanted to say that I'm sorry for sealing Kyubi inside of you, but I knew that we will need his power in the future. I left some notes on my jutsu in hidden storage seals at the bottom of scroll. There is also my personal jutsu library, if you received keys to Senju compound just add it to their library. If not use storage scroll. If you will need help with training or anything ask Hatake Kakashi. Silver hair, slanted hitai-ate over Sharingan, lover part of face covered by mask, always lazy, ANBU Codename Inu. He was one of my students. He knew that I wrote this letter. There is also something that he will recognize hidden in another storage seal at the bottom of it. When he will be questioning you unseal it and give it to him. He will recognize it without problems._

 _Namikaze Minato, Yondaime Hokage_

 _Your loving father_

* * *

After Naruto finished reading both letters his eyes were full of tears, after he finished only his mother letter he was ready to burst into crying. But now he was openly crying, but it was caused by happiness, not by pain like it was previously. He had family and some connections with his parents and people that could help him.

To be continued...


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Thank you for all those wonderful reviews. About grammar part, I try to improve as much as I can and from chapter to chapter there is some progress

Next day

„Naruto today we will start basics of chakra manipulation. Can you name all twelve handseals? And with what they're connected?" asked him Yamato once they met after weekend

„Tori(Bird), I(Boar), Inu(Dog), Tatsu(Dragon), Ushi(Ox), Tora(Tiger), Mi(Snake), Ne(Rat), Uma(Horse), Saru(Monkey), U(Hare), Hitsuji(Ram). About their connections I don't know" Said Naruto and Yamato nodded.

„Generally there are no rules about connections. But Mi seal is usually connected with Doton and Kekkei Genkai that use it. So most of Mokuton jutsu will require it. When you will master it to point of needing one seal, usually it will be a Mi seal. Tori seal is used with Suiton and most of Kekkei Genkai based on it. Tora is used with Katon jutsu and all Kekkei Genkai based on it, also half Tora is used to disable genjutsu. Ne is connected with Nara clan jutsu. Inu is connected with Fuuton. Tatsu is connected with Raiton and all dragon types of ninjutsu. But remember that it's not a rule and sometimes Katon can be connected with with U." Explained Yamato in his teacher mode

„So it's sort of guideline?" asked Naruto

„Exactly. I want you to go through all twelve seals and work on speed and accuracy of them. Remember that in fight you don't have time for thinking about seal shape and it must be almost instinctive and fast. There are jutsu or combination of them that requires over forty jutsu in case of single jutsu and in case of combinations I know some that will take over hundred of them." Said Yamato and motioned Naruto to go through seals, while watching them closely. They looked alright, but he wasn't doing them fast enough for Yamato taste, but on that he could work later.

After all he had over three and half years of time to turn him into jonin level shinobi, so he could protect from assasins and kidnappers and be ready to take mantle of Hokage in next three to ten years. And for that he needed to have mastered basics, so they could become firm foundation for his growth. After all tree without roots wouldn't grow, even if it would grew it would be destroyed by stronger gust of wind. Everybody knew that Hokage position was demanding from person that assumed it and even as heir to it, he would be taking some of Hokage duties. Like leading troops, sitting on council, being Hokage guard during Kage Summits and meeting with leaders. So he could make connections with other leaders and commanders of Konoha forces, so he could be respected by troops and other leaders.

„Not as fast as I would like them to be, but it's quite good for your level. You will be going through them faster while doing jutsu." Said Yamato and looked at Naruto „Next thing. Do you remember from Academy how chakra is built?"

„Spiritual and physical energy?" asked Naruto and Yamato nodded

„Yes. On spiritual energy you will work on your own. On physical energy we will work now." Said Yamato with evil glint visible in his eyes and Naruto gulped when he saw it. He didn't like it, not at all.

„Now?" weakly asked Naruto and Yamato only nodded

„Give me two laps around compound, twenty push ups, sit ups and squats. Once you are done we will work on your reaction speed and reflex." Told him Yamato and disappeared. Naruto grunted, but he did it. He wasn't happy, but he did it and it took him some time. But also he know that he needed strong body for being a shinobi and training was necessary.

„Good. Quite a good time." Praised him Yamato. „You will be doing that everyday before training with me, in middle of day you will do twice as much and last one you will do after we finish training for day."

„Okay. What about spiritual energy?" asked him Naruto „You said that I will work on it on my own."

„Best way to work on it is to read books, play shogi or other games. There should be some books in your library about it. If I remember correctly Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara wrote _„The Art of War"_ book about warfare, tactics. How to fight, what you should do and not do. There should be also a lot of books by other authors that are important. Ask Hokage once he will be here what you should read." Told him Yamato

„What about shogi?" asked Naruto

„I will teach you basics of it, while you may pester Hokage-sama for game or two. Actually we may play it now" Said Yamato and walked inside compound.

Meanwhile Umino Iruka was scratching his head hard. He couldn't find Uzumaki Naruto, who should be attending Academy. But he wasn't here and his sensory skills couldn't locate him, which was weird. Since it was lunch break, he decided to go and ask Hokage. Who usually knew where was Naruto.

He walked into administrative part of Academy which was touching back of Hokage tower and allowed free passage between those two buildings. Guards that were patrolling it nodded in greeting, after all teachers and principals were often walking to see Hokage, so they knew most of guards. Who didn't even bother to check them.

„Hokage-sama." Iruka politely greeted elder leader of village. Who was known to be kind and gentle leader, but there was also his other side. One that was hard and that didn't budge, one that earned him nickname Kami no Shinobi(God of Shinobi).

„Umino-san. How can I help you?" Hokage asked him. Once he finished reading document, that was on his desk and he frowned.

„Do you know where is Uzumaki Naruto? He didn't show up in class during last week and this one as well." Quietly asked Iruka

„I happen to know. Actually I was reading report concerning him. He won't be in Academy at least until last semester of last year, or maybe even he will only appear on graduation exam." Politely replied Hokage

„May I know why?" asked Iruka

„He unlocked Mokuton, so I assigned him sensei that has this Kekkei Genkai and he will teach him all aspects of shinobi arts. That one of reasons, second is that I'm getting old and I need heir. Since Naruto has biggest potential from his generation and one that could be compared to Namikaze Minato. I decided to choose him as my heir and I will be overseeing his education personally." Said Hokage and Iruka face turned from normal to disbelieving one.

„May I know why do you think that he has most talent of this batch? Uchiha Sasuke is best student and he has loads of potential." Iruka carefully phrased his questions

„I will be honest with you. Sasuke is bright, but he is pampered prince and his ego is size of small village. Also he is loose canon. While Naruto is humble and has two things that Sasuke never will. Chakra reserves that are already high jonin ones and will rapidly grow and he is jinchuuriki of Kyubi no Yoko. If he manage to form same bond as Hachibi and Bee managed to form, he will have never ending chakra pool and wisdom well in his gut that can help him." Explained Hokage and Iruka eyes widened.

„I see. So what I should tell my class if they will ask questions?" asked Iruka

„Tell them that it's S-rank secrets. Also everything that you heard here is classified, you know consequences of talking about such secrets." Told him Hokage and Iruka only nodded. Hokage was taking many precautions, but that was expected in such situation.

They bid farewells, Iruka left the room to have another class, while Hokage went to his library to retrieve scrolls and books for Naruto, that will be useful for him.

-Weekend-

Naruto was waiting for Hokage after doing his morning workout, effects of which already started showing on his body. His body started to be covered by lean, hard muscles and his stamina was increasing. But that wasn't the only thing. His chakra control was getting better, he managed to master tree walking and now most of his clones were working on water walking. In nature manipulation he managed to successfully learn Doton and Suiton first level exercises and now was slowly working on mastering them, but that would take a lot of time. A lot. To master it and proceed to next level he needed to soak or crumble leaf in less that five seconds. Currently he managed to do that in two to one minute. But that was also effect of his bad chakra control and improving chakra control helped with nature manipulation.

„Naruto-kun how are progressing your studies?" asked him Hokage

„Jiji!" exclaimed happy Naruto and ran towards him. „Quite good. Tenzo-sensei is mostly working on chakra control and basic chakra manipulation with me. I started learning some Doton and Suiton exercises. I also started reading about my clan style of taijustu. Nature Fist."

„Good. Today I want to talk with you about council and its responsibilities and also clans." Said Hiruzen and walked with Naruto to Hashirama study, which was one of best places to talk about it. On walls of it excluding maps of world, were signs of all clans that formed Konoha. Both major and minor, ones that took part in foundation and ones that joined it later. From oldest to youngest.

„As you know there are twelve shinobi clans in Konoha. Senju, Uchiha, Uzumaki and Hyuuga are usually called noble clans, because they're oldest ones. However excluding title there's no difference between them and other ones. Which are as follows Inuzuka, Aburame, Akimichi, Nara, Yamanaka, Hatake, Sarutobi and Kurama. Each clan has special ability or jutsu and has seat on council. They form half of village council, second one is made by civilians that are elected by general population and serve only a term as councilors, but they can be reelected. There are also three elders Utatane Koharu, Mitokado Homura and Shimura Danzo they were my teammates and genin under Senju Tobirama. Last part of council is Hokage and his heir if he nominated one. Each person has exactly one vote giving total of twenty seven without Hokage and twenty eight or twenty nine, if Hokage pool is added to general one." Said Hiruzen, while drawing simple diagram on paper.

„But Senju, Uzumaki and Uchiha are almost nonexistent." Interrupted him Naruto

„Yes. They are, which means that shinobi council is composed out of nine members, instead of required twelve. Which means that it's at disadvantage and there are no signs that it will improve in few years." Admitted Hokage in sad voice

„Which means that civilians can pass any law that they like or want." Quietly said Naruto and Hokage only nodded

„They changed a lot Academy. Now to pass you need three jutsu and that's enough. Kawarimi, Henge and Bunshin which are possible for almost everybody that can mold chakra, unless they have too much of it." Admitted Hokage „Worst ones were stopped by me and elders, we disagree on many subjects, but all of us care for Konoha and when we saw what they wanted to do. We firmly said no and blocked all attempts to get it approved."

„I thought that Hokage was ruler of village." Said Naruto and Hiruzen slightly nodded

„I still have a lot of power and I can use it, but I try to ask council what they think before doing something and during wars they take over ruling, because Hokage and most of clan heads are leading troops at front line." Explained Kage

„Tenzo-sensei said that you're quite good at shogi. Want to play with me?" asked him Naruto and Hokage brow rose. _„Looks like he took a page from my own book. I usually played it with Sannin, it is quite good at teaching tactics and strategy."_ Mused elder Hokage and nodded.

-Next week-

Previous week was hectic for Naruto, most of the week he was working on chakra control, shuriken and kunai handling, kenjutsu and bojutsu. Although he never suspected to see monkey as his sensei in arts of bojutsu. He managed to master water and tree walking to point of doing it almost unconsciously, he was able to do that during fights and when doing other things. Yamato decided to introduce him to jonin and Kage level chakra control exercises, normally he wouldn't learn them, but he had crazy high amount of chakra and it was necessary for Nature Fist. Taijustu style of Senju clan, that used chakra in similar way to one of Senju Tsunade, that is to cause general havoc and destruction with chakra enhanced punches and kicks. In terms of nature manipulation he managed to crumble and soak leaf, now he was working on doing it faster, it took him almost a minute to do it and before he could proceed to next step, he needed to do that in five or less seconds. Next step was most gruesome one, however it was required for most of the B and higher rank water ninjutsu.

Water elemental training normally consisted of three parts. First one was soaking leaf with water and it was done by almost all shinobi that tried to learn water jutsu. It required person to focus water chakra in their hands and sent it in steady stream into leaf, mastering it required person to do whole thing in less than five seconds. Second step consisted of shaping water into simple shapes, like cubes, balls and other relatively simple shapes. However it was required for most of jutsu that dealt with shape manipulation and that was one of most common things in water jutsu. Third step was hard and required big amounts of chakra and good control of it, if person wanted to master it he needed to make whirlpool in lake or pool while using only her chakra to spin chakra and sustain it. It was necessary for A rank Suiton jutsu and for most people it was end of training in Suiton chakra. However there was also fourth step that was only completed by Senju brothers and Uzumaki, person that was trying to master it, was required to created ball of water using only moisture that was in the air and water from nearby plants and soil. Once all of them were done, person could master any type of Suiton jutsu and safely use any Kekkei Genkai that was based on water.

On weekends he was learning about politics and diplomacy from Hokage, who showed him and explained various ties between villages. How they were influencing each other without thinking about it. But mostly he focused on Konoha law, customs and council, which was biggest headache for Kage from time of Senju Tobirama. During wars it worked well, because shinobi could focus on fighting while civilians were governing village. But now it gained too much power and it was trying to overrule Hokage, which happened few times in past regarding future of Naruto. But now thanks to dirty trick with forgotten law about clan head, that if clan head wasn't adult he could choose proxy. Hokage and Naruto were able to keep civilians from him, since he technically was clan head they couldn't do much. As a proxy he and Hokage chose Nara Shikaku, one of laziest, but also most trusted Hokage advisors.

Naruto clones were sitting around lake that was in back of Senju training ground trying to do second step, while another bunch of them worked on soaking leaf with water. It was slowly going but they were getting it. Original was with Yamato-sensei in one of dojo that were located inside of compound.

„You're getting better." Praised him Yamato, after they finished spar „Good reflex, reaction speed and clever usage of every mistake, opening and advantage presented to you. We may move onto more advanced things sooner than I anticipated. But also clones are helping a lot."

„Talking about clones first group that was working on chakra control should be dispelling in matter of minutes." Said Naruto and Yamato nodded. Clones were allowing him to move much faster with what he planned for three and half year of Naruto training. In those two weeks he managed to fix most of flaws in things taught to Naruto by Academy, but also he was able to cover things that he planned at least for two months, if not three.

„What about your Doton training?" he asked Naruto, while scratching his chin.

„Most are almost done and out of chakra." Said Naruto and Yamato took one of his thinking poses.

„ _I might start introducing him to elemental jutsu. There are few that are easy and rather useful. Also they will be a good training for him in chakra control and deciding how much chakra he needed to push to get desired effect."_ Thought Yamato and once he was done his eyes opened and he looked at Naruto.

„Come with me. It's time to start elemental jutsu training." Said Yamato and Naruto turned into yellow ball of energy. He started to be more calm and composed, but his famous Uzumaki temper was as fiery as usual.

„Yatta. Finally!" he shouted, while running after Yamato who went to field that wasn't used by clones, but had stream nearby and lots of space to destroy and nothing precious nearby. Excluding some trees dozens of meters from it, but those could be easily fixed with Mokuton jutsu.

„Naruto I have two jutsu from you. One from Doton and one from Suiton. They're called **Doton: Iwadeppō no Jutsu** (Rock Gun) and **Suiton: Teppōdama** (Gunshot). They're one of those jutsu that can be used in multiple situation. First one require only Monkey hand seal and it looks like this." Said Yamato, before calling „ **Doton: Iwadeppō no Jutsu** " and expelling multiple small pieces of rock from his mouth that transformed into huge boulders once they left it. Place where they fell was full of craters and huge chunks of rocks.

„As you can see it's pretty powerful. Orochimaru once said that in big enough number it could bring down mountain." Said Yamato and looked at Naruto, who was in awe when he saw effects of this jutsu. „Try it." Asked him Yamato and Naruto nodded

He did necessary handseals, or in this case whole one. Said „ **Doton: Iwadeppō no Jutsu** " and expelled multiple chunks of rock that quickly grew in size to quite impressive rocks. They weren't as impressive as ones used by Yamato-sensei, but they were easily as large as human head.

„Impressive. All elemental training that is done by your clones is paying of. Now about **Suiton: Teppōdama** , it's exactly same type of jutsu. But instead of expelling stones you spit out balls made out of water." Said Yamato, before doing jutsu and shooting two small balls of water. Naruto tried it and for first try it was impressive, he managed to shot four balls that kept shape and density for most of their flight to target.

„Nice try." Praised him Yamato and looked at far away tree, before saying next thing. „You will receive next jutsu once you manage to master current one." He wanted him to get strong, but he didn't believe in philosophy that said that number of jutsu learned was way to go. He believed that good shinobi didn't know thousands of them, but smaller amount of which he was master and could do them without thinking much.

„But why? I thought that more jutsu known, ninja is better." Pouted Naruto and Yamato smiled thinly.

„Well. Amount of them doesn't matter until you know how to use them and well if you just know jutsu, but don't know how to use it. It's useless for you and learning as much as possible is bad in this case. Better is to have smaller arsenal, but well known and fully mastered." Explained Yamato and Naruto nodded.

-Time skip-

Two years later

During previous two years Naruto growth was astonishing, thanks to abusing **Kage Bunshin** he managed to master over two hundred Suiton and Doton jutsu. Yamato started training him in Katon manipulation, but it was only manipulation of fire. For anything more he needed to wait patiently, but today he was really excited, finally it was a day when he would learn some Mokuton. Besides that he was getting proficient with use of sword and bo, he wasn't master of them, but none the less he was dangerous opponent. Especially when using Enma in his Bo staff form, which was impossible to destroy and could get larger and longer as needed.

„Naruto Mokuton is different than most of other Kekkei Genkai, because instead of mixing it before channeling it. With Mokuton you channel Doton chakra using one hand and Suiton chakra using second one and you mix them when going through handseals." Explained to him Yamato

„Are there any manipulation exercises?" asked Naruto, who silently was hoping to avoid them, because they were grueling and boring, at least for him.

„No, because Shodai didn't have time or need to write them. However there is plenty of jutsu that you can learn. Generally Mokuton is quite universal, it can be used to attack or as defence. It's weak against Fuuton jutsu and some of more powerful Katon ones."

„Cool, so what will be first jutsu that you're gonna teach me?" asked Naruto, excitement visible in his voice

„One of most useful jutsu, especially when you want to restrain someone or capture him. Also it's pretty easy one, because only one seal is needed. It's called **Mokuton: Mokusatsu Shibari no Jutsu** and needed seal is simply Snake." Said Yamato, called name of it and his whole arm transformed into multiple thin branches that wrapped around one of many rocks laying on training ground after multiple times they fought each other.

„Looks impressive." Murmured Naruto and looked at Yamato waiting for signal to do it. Once Yamato nodded Naruto did necessary seal aimed it at his target and branches shot out of his hand at medium sized rock that was few meters from him. They managed to wrap around it and managed to drag it to Naruto.

Two years later

In week time would be last day of Academy and graduation exam, since Sarutobi Hiruzen was preparing Naruto for taking mantle of Hokage he decided to test his judgment. It was open secret among shinobi clan heads that certain genin were slated to pass, no matter what they did. This year however it wasn't desired nine genin, because Naruto was going to be added to the pool.

„Since position of Hokage, clan head or even team commander deals with making decisions and baking them up. I have simple test for you. Here in front of you are resumes of eight genin and you, that will be formed into three elite genin teams, you are missing one to form nine. For jonin sensei you can choose any that isn't in ANBU, has over ten S-rank mission completed, is full jonin, there are no questionable loyalty notes in his jacket." Explained Hokage and placed on table between them nine genin jackets and twenty jonin ones, he 'accidentally' took few with questionable loyalty notes or tokubetsu one. To see if Naruto would see underneath and choose proper ones.

„Okay. Are there any rules regarding team set up? That are custom from previous generations? Because I remember that my father team or even yours weren't balanced." Asked Naruto

„There is one rule. That from those three teams, one must be capture and interrogation, one must be heavy combat one and one must be tracker one." Replied Hokage, with small smile. Naruto wasn't getting caught by simple traps, his training in usage of bijuu chakra helped and forming bond with Kurama even more. He had infinite well of wisdom in his gutt, that helped him multiple times and beating him in shogi was hard. Even for Nara clan members, he played few times with Nara Shikamaru and he managed to won few of those and most of one's with Nara Shikaku ended in draw.

„Tracker one? For sure Aburame and Inuzuka. Normally there would be a Hyuuga, but considering that she is only girl that don't have crush on Sasuke I'm thinking about putting her on team with Sasuke." Murmured Naruto

„I agree with you, but remember that there is also another tracker and front line fighter, even two. You and Sasuke." Interrupted him Hokage

„I know, but to be honest wasting Sharingan and Mokuton as tracker is a little pointless. They're Kekkei Genkai that are suited for front line and my tracker abilities are based on Kurama chakra so using them is risky, because someone may feel them." Countered Naruto and once again looked over all genin.

„Team 10 will be classic Ino-Shika-Cho, there's no point in destroying formation that worked for ages. It's also a custom that Sarutobi clan member is their sensei. So that only leaves Sarutobi Asuma as their sensei." Naruto said and scribbled on piece of paper names and team number. So Hokage later could officially write them and give them to jonin.

„So three genin and one jonin less. You need to remember that council will scream to put Sasuke under Kakashi." Added Hokage

„I know Jiji, but team placement are shinobi matters and they can scream as much as they want. But they won't change anything." Countered him Naruto, who already disliked this stupid, fucked up council that cared only about their power and how much money landed in their coffers.

„Yes. Point for you." admitted Hokage, who was happy that Naruto was showing talent for politics.

„So tracking team, will be team eight. Inuzuka Kiba, Aburame Shino and Haruno Sakura and I have big headache with jonin. Either genjutsu specialist, medic or tracker." Said Naruto and scratched his head for a while until he found ideal solution, at least in his opinion." That's not a bad idea. Kiba will kill me if he hears that I helped you with team creation, but what you would say about Inuzuka Hana as Team 8 sensei?" Naruto asked Hokage

„She's tokubetsu jonin, but has rather vast knowledge of taijustu and medical ninjutsu, not to mention general ninjutsu. Also she knows how to keep Kiba on short leash. I like it." Replied Hokage and wrote on piece of paper to promote her to jonin. After that he looked over left jackets and saw only three genin and few jonin. „So that leaves infamous Team 7. There is custom that members of current Team 7 should be taught by member of previous Team 7."

„So it will be me, Sasuke and Hinata under Kakashi. But his tardiness will be a problem. I can train on my own or even grab Tenzo from time to time, but Hinata and Sasuke need training badly. I could beat Kakashi if I really wanted to do that." Murmured Naruto „Can you hide most of my abilities, so he can have taste of his own medicine?" he asked looking at the Hokage. Who smiled, but it wasn't pleasant smile, it was smile of hunter or prankster that found nice target and had a good idea.

„With pleasure." Said Hokage and quickly scribbled something on paper. „I know that you wanted to visit Tsume, since she is your godmother. So here you have Hana promotion, if you can give it to her. Give it her and tell her that she will have annoying brother on her team. If not give it to Tsume." Added Hokage and gave small scroll to Naruto who nodded and left the room.

Naruto during four years since he started training changed a lot. Previously completely blue eyes, now had thin line of green inside of them. His hair were longer, he had same hairstyle as Yondaime Hokage, so he could in not so subtle way suggest who was his father. His clothes didn't change that much excluding that now he wore Nidaime armor on top of his clothes with two sword sheathed on his back in cross pattern. He didn't carry a Bo staff as a weapon, because he used Enma as his Bo staff. In terms of jutsu he was walking monster he had almost perfect chakra control and amount of known jutsu was astonishing, he knew around hundred of only Mokuton ones and those were ones that he knew least amount of. Overall he knew around thousand jutsu, but he mastered only over six hundred, but considering his age it was impressive amount. He was weakest at the genjutsu department, because of his high amounts of chakra, but he knew some of Nidaime Hokage genjutsu, that required, a lot of chakra and not so much control. That doesn't mean he didn't know weaker ones, but they weren't his favorites. In taijustu he was rather good, he managed to learn and master Nature Fist of Senju clan, it was style based around using chakra to strengthen blows. It allowed users to punch holes in walls, destroy ground or simply break bones by only flicking a finger. Officially in his jacket there was nothing about those thing, he wanted Kakashi to underestimate him, to think that he was dead last. He wanted to give him taste of his own medicine and wrong intelligence report.

He quickly made his way outside of Hokage tower and toward Senju compound where he picked up letter from Kaa-san and headed to Inuzuka compound. Which was probably loudest one in the village, if people weren't loud, than dogs were and that was for most of them week and it was main reason why not many people lived nearby.

He left his room through the window and started jumping from tree to tree slowly going towards Inuzuka compound, when he was near dogs started barking and looking around for him. He dropped onto ground in front of compound gate and knowing Inuzuka customs he walked inside. They were one of those clans that allowed everybody to walk into their compound, as long as they behaved properly and didn't try to steal anything. When he was inside of compound, he was spotted by Kuromaru, dog companion and ninken of Inuzuka Tsume, clan head and alpha of pack.

„What do you want pup here?" asked wolf. Which freaked out Naruto, but he read about every single clan. Their traits, abilities, personalities, favorite attacks etc. As a gift for his twelfth birthday he received from Hokage custom made Bingo books, with data not only about every single nukenin. But also about famous A-rank and above ninja, just in case he ever needed that knowledge.

„I'm searching for Tsume-sama." Said Naruto, while trying not to anger wolf in front of him. It was slowly circling him and sniffing him.

„I like you. Come with" Replied wolf and walked towards one of doors, while happily wiggling his fluffy tail. Which happened rarely unless he was with family or people that he considered trustworthy. When they entered main room of compound they found middle-aged woman with brown spiky hair, Inuzuka clan marking and with jonin vest on top of her clothes. She wore loose brown pants, loose brown shirt and jonin vest on top of them.

„Kuromaru who's that?" asked woman

„Someone that's searching for you." Replied wolf and motioned for Naruto to move forward. Naruto nodded and gave Tsume two scrolls, one from Hokage and second one was his mother letter. She first opened letter from Kushina and when she saw content of it her eyes widened a little.

„I'm sorry that I wasn't there for you. But civilian council blocked all our attempts to help you or adopt you, without revealing your heritage and that was most stupid thing that we could do." Quietly said Tsume

„I don't hold any grudge towards you. I would visit you earlier, but I simply didn't have time and pretext to be near Inuzuka compound." Replied Naruto and at the same time Kiba walked into the room. Naruto slowly turned around and looked at Kiba. „How much did you hear?" he growled

„What are you talking about? I just walked into the room and I don't need to answer your questions." Snarled Kiba and looked at Naruto, challenging him.

„But you need to answer mine questions and I would also like to hear answer to do that question" snapped at him Tsume and he got calmer almost instantly.

„Almost your whole talk" admitted Kiba and was scared by looks on faces of his mother and stranger that sounded, smelled and looked somewhat familiar. He couldn't place it in one spot, but he knew he met before. There was faint smell of foxes, wood, weapon and armor oil and dominant smell of water and earth.

„Kuromaru explain to him privacy and get me Hana here." Said angry Tsume „And drag him back here later. I think it's time for some explanations. Don't you think Naruto?" asked him Tsume and Kiba eyes widened, because he now remembered where he saw that person. It was Naruto who he had met during their first year of Academy, after which Naruto disappeared. Naruto nodded and Kuromaru dragged Kiba with him and called Hana.

„What he did this time?" asked Hana once he entered the room

„Heard something not for his ears. But that can wait. Now I have something for you. Even two things." Said Tsume and gave Hana scrolls. She opened first one and read, once she was done her eyes widened, a lot in fact. She was promoted to jonin.

„Not so fast. Second scroll is more amusing than first one." Interrupted her Naruto. She read it, her eyes widened yet again and she started laughing when she read content of it.

„I like it. Kiba will hate me, but I like it." She said and noticed evil glint in Naruto eye. „What's so funny?"

„One of them is fangirl of gigantic proportions. Be at Academy during graduation exam and you will see." Explained Naruto and she growled. She had similar approach to fangirls as certain Senju. Which meant that they were for loads of pain and suffering in next few weeks.

„I think it's time for some explanations. Can you fetch Kiba?" asked Tsume, Hana only nodded and left to retrieve what was left of him from Kuromaru, who didn't like eavesdropping. Once she left Tsume looked at Naruto „How much I can tell them?"

„I don't trust Kiba as much as Hana and she will get access to whole truth as she will get clearance for S-rank secrets. So tell Hana whole story, while Kiba maybe only my heritage and that's all. I'm strong enough to defend from enemies so it doesn't really matter if people know about my father." Replied Naruto and Inuzuka clan matriarch nodded. It made sense, after all from what she heard he was seen numerous times with few jonins.

It took Hana few minutes to get back with Kiba, who looked like he met angry chainsaw that damaged him. After them happily walked Kuromaru, on whose teeth and claws was visible some blood.

„So Kiba. What can you tell me about Naruto parents?" asked him Tsume, curious if he knew something.

„Nothing, he was an orphan and didn't have any living relatives." Carefully said Kiba

„That's official story. Hana can you fill blanks for him?" Tsume asked his older sister „You saw those two in our compound pretty often, before they died in Kyubi attack."

„He smells a lot like Uzumaki Kushina. That faint scent of Foxes, masked by water. On the other hand he also smells like earth and peaceful wind. Only Namikaze Minato had this particular smell. You said they were in our compound pretty often. So that means only Yondaime Hokage and his wife Uzumaki Kushina." Slowly said Hana, thinking before saying each words

„You're correct. Naruto is son of Namikaze Minato and Uzumaki Kushina, but it was hidden so he could have relatively safe childhood. But there is also a second part of it. Naruto can you drop your **Henge**?" Explained Tsume and looked at Naruto, who nodded at dropped genjutsu. Once it was done there was thin green ring inside of cerulean blue of his irises, three marks that he inherited from Nidaime and Byakugon seal on his forehead, right below one of Nidaime marks.

„Why did you hid those features?" asked him Kiba

„Because those marks are only passed to descendants of Nidaime and that thin green ring in my irises means that I have certain Kekkei Genkai. One that's sacred to us and one of most wanted in whole world. Mokuton and I really didn't want any more people after me. That seal on my forehead is rather famous. It's same one as one used by Senju Tsunade, it gives person inhuman strength and powerful chakra battery." Explained Naruto „Hana you should tell Kiba who will be his jonin sensei."

„Nah. I will let him find on his own." Replied Hana, slightly chuckling. Naruto bid farewells and left Inuzuka compound and ran towards his compound, which wasn't far away, just few blocks away. He needed to prepare for tomorrow graduation exam, no matter what he would do he would be dead last, because of attendance and Hokage couldn't do much about it.

However he was shocked, because once he entered the room he saw Hokage and Nara Shikaku sitting there and waiting for him. With serious expression on their faces

„Kage Summit is in three days time and I'm asked to bring two bodyguards." Quietly said Hokage and Naruto eyes widened. He had a chance to be present during one of most important meetings. „I want you and Nara Shikaku to accompany me to it."

„It would be an honor." Mumbled Naruto and slightly bowed

„Nah. It's nothing. After all if one day you want to take this mantle from my hands it's as good time as any to show you true international diplomacy. How it's played and how it looks." Said Hokage and Naruto nodded

„Of course Hokage-sama. So what I can expect?" asked Naruto

„Prepare for cold and snow. We're going to Tetsu no Kuni. Rest is in those scrolls laying on your desk." Answered Nara Shikaku and Naruto nodded and picked up scrolls. While he was doing that other people left the room and attended to their business.

To be continued... Kage summit starts and situation in Konoha isn't as calm as it looks...


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** Review corner

Louis Romero – remember that Tenzo Mokuton was classified and people learned about it on need to know basis. So putting him as Senju head till Naruto is old enough/ready to take it would be as stupid as writing over his back: Mokuton user. But also importance in the village. Nara Shikaku is jonin commander and Nara clan head, so he has way more influence in politics that Tenzo and can be a better teacher for Naruto. About Tsunade you will see... I have plans for her to appear earlier, although in not so nice circumstances and she will punch few genins through walls. About Hokage I don't really know, on one hand Kakashi as Hokage and Naruto taking over from his is nice idea, but I'm not sure.

sweetCRAZYangel – Namikaze or Uzumaki symbol, are a little dangerous right now. Most of people with working brain will figure our meaning of it and well. Almost all spies can add pieces and they will get that Kiiroi Senko had a son. Which isn't a good idea right now. Kage will learn soon, not on Gokage meeting, but soon. Other people will learn sooner, but Naruto will reveal it, just to shut up some mouths.

Who said that Naruto don't know Fuuton? He may know it, soon you will see one of my favorite combinations. But soon is not now and not in next two chapters

Toad contract and Jiraiya will be partially dealt in this chapter and in next one

ChibakuNaruto – about that look. It will be ignored by Hokage till he has good enough cards in his hand to play

Rose Tiger – in Polish Word, quotation looks like this „" and I'm too lazy to switch it to English once or twice per week.

Guests – I will cover it in points. Sorry for doing you in one batch, but there are too many of you

First. Uzumaki seat won't be used for some time, as I said people who are intelligent could guess who is he. About Tenzo, no just no. He is ANBU and jonin, not politician. While Shikaku is politician and clan head, so he is better choice.

Second. Grammar. I know, I know, I know.

Third. Sasuke. He will get kicked few times and really brutally by two people. Who will be bored by his behavior

Fourth. Fangirls and Hana. You will see what will happen to them, once few are caught seeing something they shouldn't see. And hear some secrets that are extremely well guarded by people that know about them.

Fifth. Relationship. For God sake he is 12. No relationships till time skip, one will be hinted few times, but only hinted. About harem. Hell no.

Sixth. Flames. Don't like don't read and let other people read.

Next chapter of Sharingan siblings will be around first week of April. I want to write few ahead and have small reserve of them. I won't be having as much time, so update rate will be slower. If you know any good beta, can you suggest one?

* * *

Next day he, Nara Shikaku and Hokage left the village and traveled towards Tetsu no Kuni, which was neutral meeting ground for all Kage, since it wasn't even a shinobi nation. Instead it was samurai one and they had great craftsmen. However weather was harsh, it almost constantly snowed and wind was relentless, people entering country usually wore thick, fur padded cloaks that could provide some warmth and protect from freezing temperatures of this climate. Naruto was named Hokage heir, but his official coronation would happen before start of third phase of chunin exam. Symbol of him being named Hokage successor was white haori with red flame like pattern at the bottom of it and Kanji for Fire in middle of it. He wore it over his normal armor. He also didn't need to wear Konoha hitai-ate, but he choose to do so, after all he might lose his haori and than without his hitai-ate, he would be treated as nukenin. So on his face he had old happuri of Nidaime Hokage, which was covered in seals that strengthened it and made it harder to destroy. Even when he was wearing it, Leaf was painted red to distinguish him from normal shinobi.

„We have arrived. Sanro mountain is in front of us, summit takes place right behind it, in the Castle of Shogun. Which is Mifune, one of oldest leaders and one that managed to fight me to standstill. I hope that Onoki won't be too curious about your heritage. A shouldn't recognize those features, while Rasa and Terumi Mei will most likely see through them, yet they will confront you in private." Said Hokage, while they were walking through snow that was covering everything in this country

„What should I tell them?" quietly asked Naruto

„Truth, they're good at detecting lies and it won't do anything good." Answered him Nara Shikaku „You need to gain their trust and form working relationship with them, so lies won't help you with that."

When they approached castle they were greeted by eleven samurai, ten normal one and their commander. They exchanged usual pleasantries and allowed them to pass and guarded them on their way to summit area.

„Something is wrong. Security is tighten, normally they have only one team." Quietly whispered Shikaku and Naruto nodded

„I saw that too. They're tense and ready to break at moment notice. Also they have emotions that can be best described as focused and kept under control." Whispered back Naruto, while slightly moving swords that were on his back. Just in case he would need to take them out quickly. While almost impossible to spot Hokage and Shikaku noticed this and made similar moves on their own. Sarutobi summoned his companion before entering Tetsu no Kuni, so he could be ready at moment notice and now it moved almost on its own into Hokage hand. While Shikaku moved sword that was on his back in similar manner to what Naruto did.

„Welcome Hokage-dono." Politely said older man in samurai armor, that emerged from stronghold which appeared in front of them. It was truly monstrous castle perched on top of great mountain and placed inside valley, that had only one easy road, through long and narrow canyon. Other roads were harder to pass and way more dangerous and could be easily blocked by one well placed jutsu or even few explosive notes.

„Welcome Mifune-dono. I guess we're last ones?" Politely replied Hokage and shifted into more friendly position.

„Yes. We were just waiting for you to start the meeting." Said Mifune and guided Hokage group into his fortress and later into room where summit would take place. It was vast oval room with big round table set in middle of it, with seat for every Kage and respective banner behind them. Four out of five seats were taken by respective Kage with their bodyguards or advisors, standing slightly behind them.

„Welcome" Murmured Hokage once he entered room and was noticed by other Kage, who slightly bowed their heads in greeting.

„I hope that your travel was pleasant Hokage-dono." Started pleasantries Rasa, Yondaime Kazekage from Sunagakure

„Yes. We didn't have any problems with." Replied Hokage and looked over faces of fellow Kage. _„Looks like they spotted Naruto and guessed his parents. Might as well drop this bomb."_ He thought, when he noticed expression on fellow Kage faces. Most of them were looking like they couldn't believe their own eyes.

„Good. Who is that guard behind your back Hokage-dono? He looks surprisingly young to be on such summit and he is almost ideal mix of Senju Tobirama and Namikaze Minato features." Asked Onoki Sandaime Tsuchikage, known as Onoki of Both Scales or as Old Fence-sitter and sole wielder of Kekkei Tota – Jinton.

„My future heir and successor Senju Naruto." Calmly replied Hokage and other Kage were shocked.

„Isn't he too young?" asked Terumi Mei „Also isn't he a son of late Yondaime Hokage?"

„I don't what are you talking about. He has no relation whatsoever to Yondaime Hokage and he isn't too young. I was named Hokage when I was his age." Responded Hokage and instead of making them drop the subject fellow Kage looked like they wanted to still press him for answers about Naruto. „Can we get down to business?"

„Of course Hokage-dono. I called this summit because of Konoha actions. I accuse you of kidnapping attempts and murder of my shinobi. Every single attacker had blank ANBU mask with kanji for ROOT at the top and Konoha leaf. I want responsible of this punished and 30 milion ryo." Said Mizukage and Hokage features hardened. Danzo was playing dangerous game and was going to pay price for his stupidity.

„I'm not responsible for those shinobi. They will be punished, but I won't pay thirty millions. Be careful with your demands." Carefully said Hokage and looked at other Kage. Kazekage would support him, but Raikage and Tsuchikage might support Mizukage, if they just enjoy good show.

Konoha was stronger that Kiri and with Suna and other allies could win war against other three villages, but there was no point in all out war. Especially Fourth Great Shinobi World War, Third was only fifteen years ago and nobody wanted another one. Last one destroyed few countries and caused great amount of damage to even major villages.

„I want some recompensation for those attempts. Even if you weren't responsible for giving them orders, they're still Konoha shinobi. So you take responsible for their actions." Told him Mizukage

„Than give us back that Byakugan, cleverly hidden behind eyepatch on left eye worn by Aoi." Responded Hokage and Mizukage eyes widened, he knew everything about her bodyguards. „You know that Hyuuga will be angry if I mention that you have Byakugan. So I suggest we drop this pointless discussion."

„What about that we end this discussion. Konoha will give Kiri all responsible for those assault, while Kiri will drop this topic." Suggested Kazekage

„I agree." Replied Hokage and Mizukage nodded. „I don't like it, but it's best idea."

That was end of negotiations for current session, it was one of more heated one.

* * *

„It went quite good and for your first summit you did well. Next session will be more dangerous, we will drop our bomb." Said Hokage

„What do you expect?" asked Naruto

„It's hard to predict. Kazekage knows, Mizukage just got punched in her face by us, Tsuchikage will be a lottery, Raikage same." Replied Shikaku and Hokage nodded. After all he was genius with brilliant analytical skills. So his analysis were usually correct and if they were wrong it meant that they were expecting a big fuck up.

After hour break Kage and their bodyguards were once again in the room. Moods were better, people calmed down and were ready for next round of meetings. One that would be most exhausting and propably most volatile one. After all jinchuuriki and Bijuu were kind of taboo in international relations. Everybody know that their enemy had one or two, but didn't know anything about their strength.

„My intelligence network gathered data that suggests that certain mercenary organization called Akatsuki tries to collect all bijuu and they will make their move in around year time. So I suggest that all Kage and their respective jinchuuriki will meet in nine moths time during chunin exam finals that will be held in Konoha." Started Hokage and was interrupted by A, Yondaime Raikage.

„No! Never!" he shouted and smashed table in front of him, causing all guards to go into battle mode. Weapons were drawn, jutsu started and starring contest began, everybody was waiting for someone else movement.

„Shikaku, Naruto stand down" Ordered Hokage and his bodyguards, reluctantly nodded and lowered their weapons. Although they still were wary, but weren't as hostile as moments before. After that other guards retreated to their spots behind their Kage back.

„Although Konoha and Kiri don't see eye to eye on many topics on this one we agree. I will be present along with our jinchuuriki Yagura, who was under influence of genjutsu when he started bloodline purges. And it was shinobi group from Konoha that helped to free him from genjutsu influence. I suggest that all of you agree to that proposition, especially you Tsuchikage and Raikage." Said beautiful Mizukage, Terumi Mei. She was called most beautiful woman of Mizu no Kuni.

„I don't like Konoha and their Hokage, but in this case he is speaking wise words. We had few attempts to kidnap our jinchuuriki in last few months. I will be there, but only if other Kage will arrive too." Said Tsuchikage and his words convinced the rest of gathered Kage to agree to Hokage idea.

„Thank you. I hope that we will meet in better times when we will be in Konoha. And that you will enjoy chunin exams that will take part during Kage summit, to be exact last stage of it. More details will be sent to you month before summit date." Replied Hokage and every other leader nodded. It sounded reasonable and before it there were whole nine months, in which everything could easily change.

* * *

They bid farewells and decided to travel to Konoha as fast as possible. Some news were troubling...

„Those shinobi Mizukage described looks like ROOT. I thought that Danzo disbanded it, soon after Uchiha massacre on my order. They tried to collect Sharingan from bodies of deceased Uchiha and my ANBU were forced to interrupt them." Murmured Hokage

„It will be so _troublesome_. Council will be making a lot of noise about it, especially when they will hear exact details of our agreement with Mizukage. But under those circumstances it was the best possible one. She wouldn't budge too much. That will be small problem compared to one when civilians will hear that Naruto, you were given hitai-ate. They still dislike you and try to do everything to block your career and when they will hear about your power they will want you to teach _Uchiha-sama_ all your jutsu." Said Shikaku and Naruto nodded. He already had few nasty clashes with civilian council. While shinobi didn't have Uchiha in high regard, because of his stuck up altitude and arrogance, civilians pampered him and gave him everything he wanted.

„I won't give that teme any of my jutsu and in most cases I'm using shortened chains of seals, which means that Sharingan won't copy it." Replied Naruto „I wonder if someone will ask me to give him my Mokuton."

„Knowing their stupidity, I wouldn't be surprised if one of brighter people on the council asked you to do that." Replied Hokage and added in more happier voice „Council will be mine problem, you focus on training and your team."

„I know, but that teme on my team will be a huge problem. At least I have Kakashi as my sensei and he may be able to help with one of my father jutsu. And could you get Jiraiya to the village so he could give me Toads summoning contract? I need that so I can finally use **Bijuudama** and other more powerful bijuu abilities or fully merge with Kyubi chakra. Toads have key to seal and without we can't go much further than Rasengan or simple chakra cloak." Said Naruto and Hokage thought for a while.

„Jiraiya is hard to get, you could use one of monkeys to find him, but anyways I will send him summon to be here around chunin exams, maybe even in three months time for few days." Answered Hokage and Naruto nodded, after that little exchanged they continued their journey towards Konoha. Where they were greeted by angry civilian council and their pupil Sasuke.

* * *

„Why did you choose him as your bodyguard? Not Uchiha-sama?" asked rather fat merchant and gulped visibly after he saw expression on Hokage face. It wasn't kind and gentle face, that Hiruzen usual wore. It was one that caused fear to appear in hearts of his enemies.

„Koga-san. I can choose whoever I want and who is worthy enough and since I thought that Naruto was worthy enough. I chose him, if Sasuke was as strong as Naruto is right now. He would go, but since he has only a big ego, he wasn't chosen. While Naruto is rising star of this generation." Calmly replied Hokage and council took few steps backwards. After all angry Kage wasn't a very good person to insult.

„Fine. I challenge Naruto to fight." Suddenly said Sasuke and took few steps forward. „Here and now."

„If you really wish to get your ass kicked it's fine with me." Said Naruto and gave Hokage his haori. After that he did few quick handseals and before Sasuke could ever blink, he was trapped by branches of tree that grew behind him.

„What did you do to him? Nobody wields Mokuton!" shouted Haruno Mebuki

„Nobody? I think that I just saw Naruto using it." Said Sarutobi Asuma, who watched this concoction on the street below and decided to jump down once Sasuke was trapped. „Sasuke next time be careful with choosing your opponents. They won't be as forgiving as Naruto."

„I can still fight. Only Uchiha can defeat Uchiha!" shouted Sasuke

„Are you sure?" asked him Naruto and switched seal from Snake to Tiger, which caused multiple spikes to grow on branches that were trapping Sasuke. Once it was done there was seen some blood flowing through branches.

„What did you do to him? Demon child!" spat at Naruto other councilman

„Nothing, he still though that he could fight so I showed him, that he was defenseless." Replied Naruto and once again changed seal to Snake. Causing those spikes to retract.

„Release him." Ordered Hokage and Naruto nodded and canceled jutsu. When he did that all over Sasuke torso and lower body were visible many small holes, sign of previous trap. Most of them were bleeding, a lot in fact.

„I think that he learned his lesson. I suggest that you get those wounds patched in the hospital." Said Naruto, took his haori from Hokage and left to Senju compound. He needed really fast shower, or even long bath and time to relax before tomorrow day at the Academy. Which could be very interesting, because of Sasuke and his fangirls. Probably by now rumors about Sasuke getting beaten by Senju were flying all over Konoha. So tomorrow his fangirls will try to beat him and avenge their precious _Sasuke-kun_.

* * *

On the next day when Naruto entered Academy classroom he was first to arrive. Today he decided to carry with him Monkey King Enma, just in case he would need to punch few heads. Or break few bones and everything looked like it was going to happen. He made his way to spot near the window in far right corner of the room, where he placed his bo staff in front of him and left swords on his back. First person to arrive after him was Nara Shikamaru, son of Nara Shikaku and one of lazy Nara, or more correctly one that used to be. After one beating at the hands of Naruto he managed to start training more, just not to get embarrassed so much, but also to make his mother could shut up and stop bothering him.

„Oi Naruto, how it was on Five Kage Summit?" he asked quite loudly, so he could annoy people that would be soon entering classroom.

„Boring, very boring. Few bandits tried to attack us on our way to it and during Summit Raikage tried to threaten us and only got caught in simple **Kage Mane**. I didn't even need to use any of my jutsu." Said Naruto once few people entered classroom. Just to mess with them and their jaws hit the floor, when they heard that Naruto thinks that Kage summit is boring.

„Why Sasuke looks like he was turned into pin cushion?" asked Shikamaru, once he saw Sasuke with multiple bandages covering his body.

„He challenged me and that's effect of it. I used one jutsu and it was over. And I need to deal with him until I become chunin or got assigned solo missions or one with ANBU." Replied Naruto and received murderous glares from Sasuke fangirls. Sakura who was sitting in row below rose from her chair and tried to punch him. Only to be sent into opposite wall by finger flick. Other fangirls decided not to do anything, after all if he had famous inhuman strength of Senju, he could have other things in store for them.

„I know that you are strong. But that's an overkill, huge one." Said pale Shikamaru, he was on receiving end of this strength few times and didn't enjoy it. Not at all.

* * *

Meanwhile in Kage office. Jonins were enjoying themselves, they were watching with Hokage classroom, so they could see reactions of students and so far it was interesting.

„Naruto looks interesting. He just basically punched Sakura into the wall by usage of single finger. Do you know how much chakra he has?" Murmured Inuzuka Hana "But considering who she is I'm not surprised that she tried to attack him in first place."

„Propably same amount as me or more. After all he is Senju and Uzumaki and can abuse Kage Bunshin. More frightening is his chakra control, he has his clan famous control, along with strength." Said Hokage and jonin eyes widened.

„So that's why he was chosen as your heir. Considering amount of clones he can make, he can learn years, upon years of things in matter of months." Said wide eyed Asuma

„What? He was chosen instead of Uchiha? I thought that Uchiha was best shinobi of this generation." Said Ebisu

„Even my son can beat Uchiha, if he really tries to do that and Naruto can easily defeat most of chunins and even some jonin. So don't bad mouth him, after all there was a reason why he was on Gokage summit." Replied Shikaku, whole sending glares towards Ebisu, who flinched and bowed his head in apology. After all Nara Shikaku was jonin commander and angering him could end really badly for unfortunate jonin.

* * *

Going back to class in the Academy people were slowly filling in all places and five minutes before time was for a beginning of a lesson, everybody was present. Mostly to see this rumored Senju heir that embarrassed last _loyal_ Uchiha.

„Shikamaru what do you think about Sasuke? For me he looks like a loose canon." Quietly whispered Naruto to Nara sitting to his right.

„He might desert and his arrogance will get him killed. Only two people that can be arrogant and are in this room are me and you. We have abilities to back our claims." Replied Shikamaru and Naruto slightly nodded.

When they finished their talk, doors to the class opened and entered Umino Iruka, followed by nine jonin that were going to be their sensei.

„Good morning class. I can say that I had pleasure teaching you for past four years and I hope that you will keep improving at such speed during rest of your ninja career. Those jonin standing behind me are going to be your sensei, till you are chunin." Announced Iruka and waited for murmuring to finish before continuing „Now I will read team placements. They're set and can't be changed. Team 1..., Team 7 is under Hatake Kakashi and is composed of Senju Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke, Hyuuga Hinata. Team 8 is under Inuzuka Hana and is composed of Inuzuka Kiba, Aburame Shino and Haruno Sakura. Team 9 is still in circulation and Team 10 is under Sarutobi Asuma and is composed of Nara Shikamaru, Akimichi Chouji and Yamanaka Ino."

Once he finished there was some muttering and once it was gone, sensei one by one took their teams to different spots for a meeting.

„Team 7 meet me on roof of Academy." Said Kakashi before disappearing in poof of smoke. Naruto disappeared in swirl of leaves and left his stunned teammates.

„How did you get here so fast?" asked stunned Kakashi, when he saw Naruto in front of him. With two swords on his back and bo staff in hand

„Same way as you did." Calmly replied Naruto and took a sit on bench under a tree and started reading scroll on Nidaime kinjutsu, called **Kuchiyose – Edo Tensei** , jutsu that allowed person to summon dead people. However only first part of scroll was focused on it, second one was focused on how to defeat it and counter jutsu, if you were forced to fight army of zombies. „Nidaime was great Hokage and jutsu creator, but some of them are just creepy." Murmured Naruto and Kakashi looked at him.

„What do you mean by that?" asked cyclops

„That some of them are so evil or dark, that they should never be invented. Such as **Edo Tensei** , on the other hand **Kage Bunshin** is brilliant idea. It helps so much with training, that it's almost hard to believe." Explained Naruto and before Kakashi managed to comment it, rest of team appeared.

„Good that all of us are here." He said with his classic eye smile. „Let's first introduce ourselves. You start Hinata." He added, while pointing at Sakura

„Maybe you could start sensei, so we know that do you expect." Replied Hinata.

„Fine. My name is Hatake Kakashi and I have many likes, not so many dislikes and few hobbies and dreams." Said silver haired jonin.

„I guess I will need to tell you something more about him." Said Naruto before taking our small, black book. „Hatake Kakashi, known as Copycat Kakashi, Sharingan no Kakashi, son of Konoha White Fang Hatake Sakumo. On genin team was under my father Yondaime Hokage, his teammates were Uchiha Obito, who gave him his Sharingan, before he died during one of their missions, his second teammate was Nohara Rin, killed by him during Third Great War. He dislikes traitors and those that leave comrades behind, likes dogs and Icha Icha Paradise. Dreams about being Hokage and to avenge his sensei, that died after sealing of Kyubi, his hobby is reading, taking care of his dogs and training. Mission record 50 D-rank, 300 C-rank, 253 B-rank, 450 A-rank and 152 S-rank." He read from it and once he was done Sasuke eyes were wide open and Hinata was shocked.

„Pretty good Bingo book. If you're smart ass you're next Blondie." Said Kakashi and looked at Naruto. Watching him closely trying to find signs that suggested that he was son of Yondaime.

„Fine. My name is Senju Naruto. I like training, reading and forests. Dislike those that leaves traitors behind. My hobby is training and reading. My dream is to surpass my father and to become a Hokage." Quietly said Naruto and Kakashi nodded. All pieces of his mental puzzle fitted perfectly.

„Your father?" asked Sasuke „You're clanless baka and dead last."

„Are all people in Konoha blind? My father is on this monument." Said Naruto pointing at Hokage rock and Kakashi only nodded.

„No way that you're Yondaime son." Replied Sasuke and Naruto shook his head. He was so blind to obvious truth.

„I'm his son." Said Naruto and looked at Kakashi who slowly nodded.

„Allright you're next Blackie." Said Kakashi and pointed at Sasuke, who scoffed and looked at him.

„My name is Uchiha. Uchiha Sasuke. I have few likes and dislikes. My hobby is training and my dream is to kill certain person and rebuild my clan." He said and starred blankly into the wall.

„ _Avenger and loose canon. Hokage was right, he might be a flight risk."_ Thought Naruto and Kakashi thought were running along similar tracks.

„Okay, last but not least Hinata." Said Kakashi and pointed at Hinata, who weakly nodded

„My name is Hyuuga Hinata. I like training and my family. I dislike traitors and people that believe in Fate. My hobby is gardening and reading. My dream is to be a good clan head of Hyuuga." She weakly said, but managed not to stutter.

„Okay. Tomorrow team 7 will be officially started, be at training ground zero around seven in the morning. You're dismissed, Naruto stay for a moment." Announced Kakashi

„What do you want sensei or should I say Ni-san?" asked him Naruto and took out Hiraishin kunai. Causing Kakashi eye to go wide.

„Nothing much, I just want to say I'm sorry and if you need help with Rasengan or Hiraishin, you can ask me." Quietly said Kakashi and Naruto nodded.

„Thanks sensei. I will appreciate your help, but now I need to start learning bijuu taming jutsu." Replied Naruto and disappeared in swirl of leaves.

On the next day two people were standing before giant gate and were wondering how to get inside. It was locked with lock that scanned their Shinobi ID Cards and their were rejected. However they were shocked when they saw Naruto walking to lock and opening doors.

„How did you do that dobe?" asked him Sasuke

„Special permission from Hokage and normal access to this field. Come in." He said before letting them pass and following inside. When they walked through the gate they saw large meadow with few small lakes around and a stream that was starting in the forest in northern part of field. In middle of grass field there were three wooden stumps and Kakashi was leaning against middle one.

„Good that you're here. You will fight series of 1 vs 1 fights against me, so I can see your strength and weaknesses. First is Naruto, next will be Sasuke and last is Hinata." Said Kakashi and everybody nodded. Wait, everybody? No, Sasuke disagreed.

„I'm Uchiha, an elite. You should fight me first." He shouted at Kakashi. Who disappeared in blur, appeared in front of Sasuke, caught his right arm, broke it and followed by breaking his wrist. After that he grabbed his head by hairs and placed kunai on his jugular.

„Did you say something?" he asked and Sasuke lightly shook his head. „Good. I'm jonin, while you're nothing. You follow my orders, you don't question them, when I say jump, you jump." He hissed and drew a little amount of blood with his kunai.

„ _As I suspected, he thinks that he is reincarnation of Kami on Earth and he need to be showed his place. This might be a wake up call or not. Propably if Naruto will trash him it will be enough."_ Mused Kakashi and once he finished, he lightly shook his head and walked onto middle of clearing and looked at Naruto, who nodded.

They fell into opening stances of their fighting styles, in Naruto case Nature Fist, while in Kakashi modified version of Yondaime Hummingbird Fist. While Nature Fist was based on powerful and fast blows, Hummingbird was focused on counters, fast jabs and agility. Being faster than enemy was crucial for effectiveness of it.

Naruto took off and charged at Kakashi who tried to block first few hits, but after feeling strength of them, he decided to dodge or deflect them. Blocking them was almost a suicide for person that tried it. _„He hits almost as hard as Gai and that's without chakra enhancements."_ Thought Kakashi, when he was thinking how he could get past Naruto defense, without using Sharingan. He was shocked that such thought appeared in his mind, but he was considering using Sharingan against genin. He was getting soft. Way too soft, as a matter of fact. They fought in taijustu for few more minutes, before jumping towards opposite ends of training ground and looking at their opponents.

„ _I can either go for using Mokuton or limit to normal affinities. I think normal affinities are better choice."_ Thought Naruto and started going through handseals, for jutsu that wasn't really strong. But was annoying as hell and could be used as base for Suiton ninjutsu.

„ **Doton – Yomi Numa** (Swamp of the Underworld)" shouted Naruto and slammed his palms onto ground. After he did that whole clearing turned into muddy, sticky swamp that limited range of movements for every person and forced them to use water walking or stay away from it.

„How the hell you manage to do that jutsu? It requires a lot of chakra and most of genin can't execute it." Asked him Kakashi, just to annoy Sasuke. „Hell, even most of chunin can't do it."

„Suiton chakra and I have one of biggest reserves in whole village." Answered Naruto before going though another chain of handseals. When he was done he shouted „ **Suiton: Suigadan** (Water Fang Bullet)" and from swamp rose few fang shaped tendrils of water that charged at Kakashi, forcing him to withdraw and stay away from water and swamp.

„Who are you Naruto?" asked Kakashi, while dodging fangs that were chasing

„I'm a little, humble genin." Replied Naruto and started focusing chakra in his hand, which quickly formed small blue, hand size ball. But he didn't stop there, he started adding violet chakra to it. Causing it to change color to dark violet, when Kakashi saw this his eye widened.

„Rasengan with bijuu chakra?" he quietly asked

„Yes, since I can't make Bijuudama I use this. Same effects just smaller scale and less volatile." Replied Naruto, before charging towards Kakashi. „ **Rasengan**!" shouted Naruto before slamming it into place where was Kakashi, who managed to escaped with quick Kawarimi. When it connected with surface of poor log it started destabilizing and when it grinded small hole in it, it blew up. Changing log into splinters and toothpicks.

„Assassination jutsu on jonin sensei?" asked annoyed Kakashi

„You told us to come with intent to kill." Replied Naruto and he was forced to jump out of the way. Because blade made out of lighting was coming his way, aiming to kill him, not just wound. After all hit to the heart would be fatal, or in most cases it would.

„ **Raikiri** " shouted Kakashi, before trying to skewer Naruto, who dodged it. By hair length, but dodged it.

„Maybe we should stop fooling around and go for large scale attacks?" suggested Naruto once they finished current round of combat.

„I agree." Nodded Kakashi and they jumped away. Naruto towards trees, while Kakashi stood in the open.

„ **Katon – Hosenka no Jutsu** " Shouted Naruto, once he was done and multiple flower shaped fireballs left his mouth and rained down onto Kakashi position. Who just looked bored and responded with his own jutsu.

„ **Suiton – Suijheki** " shouted jonin and in front of him rose protective wall of water. It quenched fireballs and prevented them from hitting Kakashi. Who used this water for another jutsu. „ **Suiton – Suiryudan** " he shouted, after going through a chain of seals, water rose from swamp and wall and formed giant dragon behind Kakashi. Who sent it towards Naruto, who made single clone and both of them started going through chain of seals.

„ **Doton – Doryūdan** " shouted original, soon followed by a clone, which shouted „ **Katon – Karyūdan** " jutsu combined and balls spewed out by earth dragon, were set on fire by fire one. Both jutsu struggled for dominance and earth one won. It was strong against water and was supported by second dragon.

„Twin dragons attack of Sandaime Hokage? Nice" Murmured Kakashi once he jumped out of projectiles path.

„Yes. One of the best combo and rather easy to make." Nodded Naruto and started going through another chain of seals. „ **Kuchiyose no Jutsu** " was heard and there was large plume of smoke. When it was gone in front of Naruto was large ape with Konoha hitai-ate. „ **Henge - Kongōnyoi** " Ordered Naruto and Enma nodded and changed into his second form.

„Now what?" shouted Kakashi, while he dodged Bo strike that shattered tree behind him. And quickly spun around it and brought kunai to block it. He grabbed it and used it as lever to send Naruto flying. When Naruto was in the air, he managed to get close and sent few powerful punches that sent Naruto flying towards ground, without air in his lungs.

When they landed onto ground Kakashi grabbed Naruto, before he could crash onto hard unforgiving earth and gently placed him onto grass on one of edges of the field. After all after such strikes he would need time to get up.

„As I suspected this clanless dobe lost against you." Sneered Sasuke, while looking at Kakashi, with pain visible on his face. After all broken bones caused a lot of it.

„He is way ahead of you. He easily executed collaboration jutsu, which requires jonin level reserves, but before that he turned whole field into swamp, used one of Yondaime Hokage jutsu, knows summoning contract and few other things. If for you he is dobe, I can only suspect who is genius for you." Snapped at him Kakashi

„Dobe teach me your jutsu." Shouted at Naruto Sasuke, once Naruto was awake.

„Never. Most of them requires a lot of chakra or fine control. Not to mention that most is personal creation of Hokage, Sannin or previous Hokage. I may teach you one or two if you change your altitude." Said Naruto and Kakashi nodded.

„Since Sasuke is out, next is Hinata." Said Kakashi and Hinata nodded and walked towards middle of now fry clearing. Naruto canceled jutsu that created this swamp and they could safely walk over it. Hinata fell into opening stance of Gentle Fist, but Kakashi and Naruto saw that it wasn't best style for her. It was built for high and strong people, she was more of agile and fast fighter. More like Uchiha or Yondaime Hokage, she just didn't have body build for Juuken.

She tried to attack Kakashi, who slightly deflected her strikes, just so they could miss his tenketsu and slightly attacked, just to check her defense and she tried to counter his strikes. But couldn't do that, no matter what she did.

„That's enough I saw enough." Said Kakashi „You're just not built for Juuken, at least stock version of it. You're more of fast and agile fighter, not someone who will stay in place and block all attacks."

„I agree with you. Hinata would be better when she would try using some moves from Hummingbird Fist developed by my Tou-san." Added Naruto

„Yes. I will talk with Hiashi-sama about your training." Said Kakashi, when he noticed fear visible on Hinata face. „Now about training. We will meet here at 7 in the morning and till lunch we will do teamwork exercises and general training. From lunch to three in the afternoon it will be time for missions and after that till 7 in the evening individual training. Naruto about your Kekkei Genkai you can use _that_ training ground and I will talk with Tora. If he will have time." After those words everybody nodded. It was reasonable training schedule.

„Why he is getting personal training in Kekkei Genkai, while I won't get it." Asked angry Sasuke

„Because his Kekkei Genkai is active, your Sharingan is not. That's simple and Naruto isn't using it, because there was no need for him to use it in this fight. It's designed for heavy weight enemies, you will see it around chunin exam." Kakashi violently dressed down Sasuke. Who simply nodded, too shocked to say anything.

That was end of training for Team 7 for today and tomorrow was going to be fateful day. One that could break it apart, or forge it into something new and tightly knitted...


	4. Chapter 4

A/N

Review Corner:

bankai777 – Who said that chunin exams will be same as canon? They might be or might not. I'm playing with idea of more bloody second stage and thus no preliminaries and than just third round. Which may or may not be team fights.

Red Cheetah 93 – Sasuke will change. Catalyst to his change and change will start to appear in this chapter. Remember that he respects strength and that Mokuton chakra has interesting abilities. Also remember that similar experience can form bond between people. And looking closely at Sasuke live after coup and Naruto we can see similarities, they're like two sides of same coin. Also I like him too much as character to just kill him.

Louis Romero – Jiraiya as Hokage? No, no, no. There are three reasons. One his image inside of Konoha – he is loved by half of populace and hated by second half. Two he is a pervert and well. Such type of person on visible position is a bad thing. Three intelligence network, he is spy master of Konoha for over twenty years and rebuilding such contacts will take years for other person. Hiashi will be different, I will reveal things from his past when he will meet Naruto, but he will be pushing Hinata to befriend Naruto.

sweetCRAZYangel – not going to happen, I like Sasuke too much. He will get brutally pushed into ground and he will start seeing reasons. Also Mokuton chakra has certain abilities and remember that people can suppress their chakra, but they do that only when they don't want to be seen. So he is constantly emitting some Mokuton chakra. Which has healing and calming properties and Sasuke mind is just a little messed up. About Jiraiya he will be in two or three chapters. In this will be more training, in next more training and first missions. Spoiler: C-rank turned into S-rank one. After that cleaning Konoha and maybe Jiraiya.

ChibakuNaruto – will be revealed in due time. Remember old rule about plots. The more people know the bigger chance that it will blew up in your face and be honest Summit places are full of spies, so delivering details in scrolls is safer. About announcement. It will be during chunin exam or maybe not.

This chapter may sound weird, especially Sasuke, but to be honest. He has thick skull, but even he would see reason after getting beaten and beaten. Also as I said Mokuton chakra, if it can tame bijuu which are embodiment of hatred and malice. For sure it can heal somewhat messed up mind, there's a reason why Senju Hashirama was called greatest medic to ever live.

Announcement time Sharingan Siblings chapter will be posted around first weekend of April. I'm polishing chapter and writing next one. Spoiler alert: War is coming.

When Naruto returned to Senju compound he saw summon to council meeting, without any given reason. He picked it up and read. „As I thought Sasuke came to civilian council. It will be amusing, very amusing meeting." He mused. He dressed in his formal armor and over armor put his haori, but before bothering to check council chamber he went to Hokage office.

„Jiji, can you explain what council wants from me?" quietly asked Naruto and dropped scroll with summon onto Hokage desk. Who picked it up carefully and unrolled it, when he saw it he was shocked. Someone tried to go behind his back and he didn't really like it. After all after last few attempts they should learn that doing that was rather risky and stupid.

„It seems that council forgot their place." Said Hokage once he read it and folded fingers in front of him and closed eyes for a moment. „It has fingertips of Danzo all over it, he is known for such things. But also your teammate might be jealous that you know those jutsu and came to them asking for help." He quietly said and rose from his chair and left to the council room with Naruto in tow.

When they entered the room shinobi nodded when they saw them, while civilians sent them glares full of hate and hatred. Hokage walked to his seat at head of table and Naruto took one to his right.

„Can any of you tell me who tried to go behind my back?" asked angry Hokage and sent murderous glares towards civilians, who managed not to flinch.

„Hokage-sama we didn't think it's important enough to bother you. We just simply requested presence of Uzumaki Naruto before this council. Who should rise and show us some respect." Managed to say one of greater Naruto haters before he flinched when he felt killing intent coming off the shinobi council.

„First thing. His name is Senju Naruto, not Uzumaki. Second he don't need to rise, technically you should rise and show him respect. Third thing he is shinobi under command of Hokage-sama, no one else." Quietly said Nara Shikaku, annoyed as fuck by stupidity of civilians and decided that lifting his head and telling them truth would be less troublesome than not doing it.

„Thank you Nara-san, now where we were. Ah yes. What do you want from me?" asked Naruto, while glaring at civilians and flexing his chakra. „But first thing what is he doing in council chamber?" he added pointing at Sasuke who was hiding in the shadows.

„I don't remember inviting him." Murmured Hokage and snapped his fingers. Immediately in front of him appeared two ANBU. „Escort him out of the room." They grabbed Sasuke and removed him out of the room.

„Now where we were? Ah, yes we were talking about what do you want from me." Said Naruto, while lazily playing with his kunai.

„We want you to teach Uchiha-sama all of your jutsu." Shouted Haruno Mebuki

„Not going to happen any time soon." Replied Naruto, while he was polishing one of his swords, not caring about glances from civilians.

„You should feel honored to teach him. After all he is last loyal Uchiha." Shouted Izuna

Those words were one of most stupid words they could say. When Naruto heard them he started flaring chakra and soon floor and walls started to crack under pressure of his potent chakra.

„Do not order me to do anything and do not tell me anything about honor." He growled while slowly leaked some Mokuton and Kyubi chakra into his already potent chakra. Addition of those two made it way stronger and shinobi were heaving problems with breathing. While civilians were taking few steps backwards, only person that didn't have problems with it was Hokage. He was accustomed to such volumes of chakra being released and he could release even stronger one, if he really wanted to do that.

„Naruto, I think it's enough." Ordered Hokage and everybody could once again breath,after Naruto cut flow of his chakra. „As Naruto said he won't teach Uchiha Sasuke, who in my opinion doesn't deserve to be taught those jutsu. Next thing this is last time that I will tolerate your actions behind my back. Next time you will get punished for them. Council dismissed."

Shinobi quickly rose from their seats, they were bored by Sasuke antics and they had more important matters to attend. Like training or taking care of family and clan. Civilians did it very reluctantly, they had time, a lot of it in fact and wanted to annoy Hokage and his heir. And delaying end of council session was one of such things. They couldn't do that openly so they did it in more subtle manner, such as delaying or extending things.

On next day Naruto was first to arrive on his team training ground. When he arrived there he was spotted by Yamato or Tenzo or when in ANBU uniform Tora. His first sensei and now his second sensei, that was focused on his Mokuton training.

„Good that you're here. I think it's time for you to learn two most powerful Mokuton jutsu, first one is Hokage-Shiki Jijun Jutsu — Kakuan Nitten Suishu(Hokage-Style Sixty-Year-Old Technique — Enclosed Hermitage Entering Society with Bliss-Bringing Hands), second one is Mokuton: Mokuryū no Jutsu(Wood Dragon Jutsu). For first one seals are as follows. Snake - Rat - Dragon - Dog - Hare - Bird - Snake - Dragon - Yin Water - Snake - Bird - Dragon - Tiger - Boar - Tiger - Snake - Rat - Dragon - Hare - Snake - Bird - Dragon - Yang Earth - Horse - Snake - Dragon - Snake - Dragon - Bird - Dragon - Bird - Dragon - Horse - Snake - Rat - Dragon - Dog - Hare - Bird - Snake - Dragon - Yin Water - Snake - Bird - Dragon - Tiger - Boar - Tiger - Snake - Rat - Dragon - Hare - Snake - Bird - Dragon - Yang Earth - Snake - Dragon - Bird - Snake and final effect looks like this." He said before slamming hands onto ground and channeling his chakra into it. Around Naruto rose ten pillars made out of wood with spikes facing inwards and on Yamato hand appeared kanji for sit. „Can you channel some Kyubi chakra? Around two to three tails worth of it? I can show you how it works." He suggested and Naruto nodded. But once he did that he started feeling pain and Kyubi chakra was being siphoned of him.

„It hurts a lot and I can't draw more of it." Said Naruto and Yamato nodded and canceled it.

„It's your best shot at stopping jinchuuriki, short of going all out and using Kyubi chakra or summons. But once it transforms into it full bijuu form it won't work, than you need to use your own or summons." Said Yamato „Can you name all nine jinchuuriki and their allegiance?"

„Ichibi, current jinchuuriki Sabaku no Gaara, B-rank threat, Jinton Kekkei Genkai and Fuuton affinity, characteristics signs, black circles around eyes, that are sign of insomnia, tattoo with kanji for love over left eye. Gourd full of sand on his back. Shinobi of Sunagakure, son of Yondaime Kazekage. Believed to be unstable, due to weak seal, propably three or four pronged one. Suna never had good fuinjutsu experts and most of Ichibi hosts were a little crazy.

Nibi, current jinchuuriki Nii Yugito, C/B-rank threat, unnatural agility and flexibility, extremely high affinity for Katon, can wield blue fires, cat specific jutsu. Lack of characteristic signs. Shinobi of Kumogakure.

Sanbi, current jinchuuriki Yagura, previous Mizukage S/A-rank threat, unnatural affinity for Water. Lack of specific signs. Shinobi of Kirigakure.

Yonbi, current jinchuuriki Yoton no Roshi, S/A-rank threat, Yoton Kekkei Genkai, unnatural strength, red hairs and big fangs. Shinobi of Iwagakure

Gobi, current jinchuuriki Han Jōki no Jinchuuriki, S/A-rank threat, Futton Kekkei Genkai, lack of characteristics signs. Shinobi of Iwagakure.

Rokubi, current jinchuuriki Utataka, A/B-rank threat, lack of information on his abilities and physical description, last seen around Nami no Kuni, currently rogue, previously Kiri.

Nanabi, current jinchuuriki Fuu, B/C-rank threat, control over bugs, teal hairs and orange eyes. Shinobi of Takigakure.

Hachibi, current jinchuuriki Killer Bee, S-rank threat, ink production, huge amounts of chakra, even for bijuu, unnatural strength. Ox horn tattoo on right cheek. Brother of Yondaime Raikage, shinobi of Kumogakure.

Last, but not least me. Kyubi, current jinchuuriki Senju Naruto, aka me, A-rank threat, negative emotion sensing, strength, regenerative abilities, huge amount of chakra. Sign whisker marks. Shinobi of Konoha." Finished Naruto and Yamato nodded.

„Kyubi helped you?" quietly asked Yamato

„On most of them. He can't remember details about Rokubi." Said Naruto and Yamato nodded. He was one of few that knew truth behind sealing and knew that Naruto and Kyubi worked together. Or at least Kyubi was helping Naruto and didn't hate him, like most of bijuu did.

„I would like you to try one think, that you may have. You're half blood Uzumaki after all and you may be able to use it. It's called Kongō Fūsa, they're chains that can bind any person or even bijuu. It's unlikely that you will have them, but you should at least try it and see if you can. Try to focus your chakra in tips of your finger and imagine it forming chains." Said Yamato and Naruto did as he was told. From his hands and back shot out golden chains covered in seals and with sharp and pointy end, that looked like kunai.

„Impossible." Said Kakashi who appeared on the cleaning, while Naruto was trying to manifest those chains

„Huh?" asked Naruto and looked at Kakashi

„They are very rare Kekkei Genkai, even more powerful that Sharingan if user is trained properly. We will need to talk with Hokage about giving you all Uzumaki scrolls that are in the village or it's time for trip to Uzushiogakure and scouring ruins that are there." Explained his jonin

„What do you know about them?" asked Naruto

„They're able to suppress bijuu chakra and can be used as rather dangerous weapon in fight, I saw them when your mother was training and even four of us. I mean previous team 7 and your father weren't able to get past them." Said Kakashi.

„I see." Replied Naruto and used his sensory abilities to look around. „Looks like rest of team is slowly walking towards us."

„Good. I think it's time for classic bell test." Cheerfully said Kakashi and Naruto shook his head slightly. It was going to be hard.

„Good that all of you are here. Your task is simple" Said Kakashi and took out of his pocket two bells and timer „Timer is set to two hours and you need to take those two bells from me."

„Any limitations in what we can use?" asked Naruto

„No. Any weapon and jutsu you know." Replied Kakashi and paled when he saw Naruto expression, on his face was predatory grin. One that looked way too close to Kushina-sensei one to feel safe.

„Good"

„Start!" shouted Kakashi and team, excluding Naruto left the clearing. Naruto started going through handseals.

„Kuchiyose no Jutsu" Shouted Naruto and near him appeared large ape „Enma I need you as Bo staff. Sensei decided to perform another stupid test."

„Okay" Replied Monkey and turned into Bo staff, which was quickly twirled around by Naruto and flurry of strikes went after Kakashi. Forcing him to not read his book, because he couldn't block them with one hand. When Naruto decided that Kakashi was distracted enough he quickly made two sealess clones that went towards Hinata and Sasuke unnoticed by Kakashi.

„Sasuke we need to work together. None of us can beat him on our own." Quietly whispered Naruto clone, when it appeared behind Sasuke

„Like I would need to work with any of you." Replied Sasuke and disappeared. Naruto just shook his head, that would be Uchiha downfall one day, working in team was one of most important things for Konoha shinobi.

Kakashi was getting bored by fight with Naruto so he threw few smoke bombs onto ground and disappeared into bushes that were to his right. Where he was there he ran after other two genin. First to found him, after he allowed it was Sasuke, who looked like he was going to murder him one way or another. Uchiha quickly attacked Kakashi head on in taijustu and jonin didn't even need to hide his book, he was able to dodge and block all attacks with just one hand.

„How dobe was able to fight you? How?" shouted Sasuke and his tongue clicked in annoyance. After that he disengaged Kakashi and started weaving through handseals „Katon – Gokakyou no Jutsu" he shouted and large fireball left his mouth and covered better than half of clearing and when it was gone. Kakashi wasn't seen standing there, but there wasn't a corpse left, which meant he hid. Hid somewhere, but where. Sasuke didn't have a chance to think, before pair of hands shot out of the ground below him and caught his ankles and pulled him down. Burying him up to the head in the ground.

„Doton – Shinju Zanshu no Jutsu" Said Kakashi, once he appeared on the surface. „You're head above the others" Added in mocking tone and left to search for next victim. Going after Naruto would be stupid, so he was forced to go after Hinata. Who was surprisingly hard to find, she was hiding in the leaves of few trees and she knew how to hide her chakra presence, or how to at least make it looks small.

Kakashi walked underneath her position for few times, before he was able to spot her and even then he had troubles doing that. „Looks like Hyuuga trained her well. So far Sasuke looks like worst one in this team. His skills are quite good, but his personality and loose wolf altitude might be a huge problem." Thought Kakashi and started to flush her out of treetops. He started with throwing few kunai at her position forcing her to jump out of the way, thus revealing her true position.

When she landed onto ground she fell into opening stance of Juuken, but wasn't confident it what she was doing. When he tried to attack her, she was replaced by log and he couldn't locate her chakra, like she completely disappeared from his view.

„Thank you Naruto-kun" Replied Hinata when she saw herself being moved from Kakashi position

„We need to get Sasuke work with us." Said Naruto and she nodded

„Yes, I don't like him. But it's teamwork exercise." She quietly said

„Can you use your Byakugan to find him?" quietly asked Naruto „I'm sensor, but when I'm using my abilities, my chakra looks like giant flare to almost everybody around me and they can track me. Also your Byakugan would be blind."

„Hai" Replied Hinata, before she activated it and took a long and careful look around the forest. „I found him, he is stuck in the ground four hundred meters to the north."

„Good. We need to rescue him from this stupid trap and force to work together." Said Naruto as they ran towards Sasuke position.

„I don't need your help!" shouted Sasuke when he saw them

„I think you need it, so shut up and let me dig you out of this mess." Said Naruto while flashing through handseals and finishing with Snake seal. When he was done Sasuke was pushed out of the ground and didn't even say thank you.

„I don't need your help." He said before trying to ran off, but than Naruto Bo staff extended and from it appeared furred hand, which caught Sasuke and dragged him back. „Let me go, you flea bag" shouted Sasuke and did one of worst mistakes. Never ever, I mean never ever insult boss summons. I mean you can try but chance that you will survive the meeting is slim, at best.

„Uh, oh. Hinata-chan we better get the hell out of here." Said Naruto, when he heard those words. „He is for one hell lot of pain and humiliation. He just insulted Monkey King Enma who has temper almost as bad as Uzumaki clan and that's an achievement, he is also very, very easy to insult."

„Aren't you attacking me?" asked surprised Kakashi, he was even more surprised when he saw look of horror on Naruto face. And noticed he was missing his Bo staff, than something clicked in his mind and remembered that Enma was easy to anger. „He didn't do that thing, did he?"

„He did and I'm not going to come near Enma until he is calm. Last time after such thing I was forced to put every single bone in my arms into their proper places." Explained Naruto and at the same time loud shouts were heard. They sounded similar to Sasuke, yet different, they were way higher than Sasuke voice used to be. They were soon followed by crashing trees and sounds of heavy hits finding their targets, followed by more screams and cries. Dozens minutes later Enma came back, dragging barely conscious and beaten Sasuke. He had so many bruises, cuts, wounds and other things that he looked like he met Shinigami, literally there wasn't a single part of his body without any bruise, cut or something worse.

„Enma-sama I'm sorry for my student behavior." Quietly said Kakashi, hoping that he was off the hook, same as his student.

„I think he learned his lesson." Said Monkey before returning to his home, happy that he had opportunity to stretch his muscles and have some fun.

„Heal him? It will take better part of my reserves." asked Naruto „Or drag him to hospital?"

„Heal" Said his sensei and Naruto nodded. First he knocked out teme so he could work in peace, without his grunts, screams and other unpleasant things.

„Kakashi-sensei can you help me and put back his bones into their proper place so I can use my Shosen?" asked Naruto and once older jonin started putting together bones. He healed them using his jutsu, it took him over an hour, but after that major injuries were healed and now he just needed to woke up.

„Since Sasuke is sleeping beauty right now. You two will do some stretching exercises and work on your strength." Said Kakashi with evil glint visible in his eye. Naruto thought that it would be pleasant, but he was soon wrong. Kakashi if he wanted to was a terrible slave driver and sadist and after three hours of warm up everybody, even Sasuke who woke up. Were laying on their backs and panting heavily.

„Are you insane?" asked Naruto after they finished so called warm up. Once he did that he ate two soldier pills to rebuild his chakra, his pool was drained by healing Sasuke and by strengthing his muscles during training so he could survive it. „I don't remember ANBU training to be so harsh."

„I'm not insane. You're just a bunch of lazy genin, that I need to turn into proper shinobi. Now Sasuke and Hinata you practice chakra control. Hinata I know that you learned tree walking, so you will show that to Sasuke. While Naruto will have my personal attention." Naruto shuddered when he heard those words.

„What are we going to do?" asked Naruto once they were alone

„Weapon dodging and deflecting." Said Kakashi and before Naruto could respond first wave of projectiles was flying towards him. He quickly took out one of his kunai started deflecting most of projectiles, while dodging rest of them.

„That wasn't too hard" he said after first wave was gone

„Yes it wasn't, but this one will be." Said Kakashi and took out few storage scrolls full of shuriken, senbon and kunai and launched them at Naruto. Who looked like what the hell is that, but he quickly started dodging most of them, but dozens of them managed to graze him and he looked like pin cushion. Thankfully most of them was stopped by his mesh armor and normal armor, but some penetrated mesh and embedded in flesh below. After thirty minutes of this torture, Kakashi decided it was enough.

„That's good enough. Practice chakra control and send Sasuke here." Said cyclops before Naruto walked away, while pulling out weapons that remained stuck in his arms and legs. Surprisingly wounds didn't want to heal like they used to do, which meant that there was weak poison on those weapons or he was exhausted after so little training. But compared to training that he had with Yamato it was hell, Yamato never was so demanding and knew some limits.

„Sasuke cyclops wants you. Prepare for loads of pain." Said cheerfully Naruto, while he walked to one of trees that were here and was relatively straight and without annoying branches.

Sasuke when saw Naruto almost fall onto ground, Naruto armor was covered in blood and his clothes were full of cuts and were ripped in many places, even mesh armor that was under them was torn and blood was flowing from many small cuts.

„What happened to you?" he weakly asked once he jumped onto ground

„Dodging and deflecting weapons and my reflex usually is really good and I don't have problem with dodging them. But he decided to made it hard, very hard." Replied Naruto and started walking up and down the tree while using his chakra to hover kunai over his palm. It was way harder than normal exercise, because he needed to maintain concentration of chakra in two points, but also there were required different strengths of pulses. While tree walking didn't require a lot of chakra, just steady stream of it. On the other hand kunai hovering required steady streams, but of different force and they needed to be quite strong. However it wasn't pinnacle of chakra control, it was considered jonin level exercise and there were two Kage level exercises. One that was required for learning Rasengan, which involved spinning a lot of chakra in set space and second was balancing on senbon needle using only chakra to keep balance.

Team 7 rotated in such manner for next five hours till it was evening and Kakashi let them rest. Out of all of them Naruto was in best shape, but even he was exhausted and covered in bruises, cuts, flesh wounds and his clothes looked like they met furious chainsaw and even mesh armor was in pieces. Sasuke was in a lot worse shape, after beating from Enma he looked like he come back from hell, Kakashi added his own list of injuries and he was covered in them, his clothes were in pieces and his chakra pool was exhausted. Hinata was exhausted, but at least her clothes didn't look like rags, they looked like something that human being may wore.

Naruto limped his way to Inuzuka compound where he knew he could find Hana, who was quite a good medic and wouldn't question what happened to him. When he entered it, he ran into Kiba who was also returning from his team practice. And he was in similar shape to him, although a little better.

„What happened to you?" he asked Naruto.

„Kakashi, who was supposed to be lazy and laid back. I need to get your sister, so she can patch those wounds." Replied blonde, while he was pulling out last weapons that were embedded in his body, which wasn't a pleasant thing. „What about you?"

„Sensei, who happens to be my sister and she is a slave driver." Said Kiba and Akamaru nodded in agreement, while whimpering a little. They entered the inner area and almost immediately found Hana and her dogs. Which were of size of fully grown husky, but we're brown, not gray and white like husky.

„What happened to you?" she asked once she saw Naruto.

„Kakashi idea of reflex training and taijustu. Can you heal those wounds? I'm too exhausted to do that on my own and I'm almost out of chakra." Said Naruto and Hana nodded.

„Yes and I'm going to talk with Kakashi about your training. If you want you can crash in one of rooms here." Replied Hana before she started healing Naruto, who had surprising amount of wounds. Also there was fair share of senbon embedded in his body. When she was done with healing Naruto there was small pile of senbon laying besides him and even few shuriken and kunai. „No wonders that Fox couldn't heal you, those senbon were covered in weak poison to slow down your regeneration."

„Thanks, if you don't mind I'm going to crash somewhere and sleep. I'm too tired to drag myself to my house." Said Naruto and found nearest free bed and went to sleep. In the morning he had nasty wake up call when he felt wet tongue of large dog on his cheek. He immediately opened his eyes too see who was the threat and to look around.

„Wake up, pup" Said Kuromaru who woke him up.

„Yeah, yeah, yeah" Replied Naruto and got out of his bed. He stuck kunai in the wall of the room and flashed to his room in Senju compound to get new clothes. And decided to add as many armor plates to his mesh armor as possible and practical, so he could be somewhat safe during today training. On top of them he put his normal clothes and armor. When he was done he flashed back to Inuzuka compound.

„Morning" he murmured when he entered room where was Hana, Kiba and Tsume and rest of her family were eating breakfast. „I want to skin alive my sensei."

„Why?" asked Tsume, with raised eyebrow.

„He turned me into pin cushion. Ask Hana how many senbon he managed to get out of my body."

„A lot of them" Added Hana and Tsume nodded „And he had chakra exhaustion."

„What the hell he did with you?" asked shocked matriarch of Inuzuka clan

„Training. Taijustu, chakra control, dodging and deflecting and I worked on few jutsu on my own. Ones that take huge amount of chakra." Said Naruto and looked at clock „I need to get going. He will be in ten minutes." After that he disappeared in shunshin.

Ten minutes later Naruto and rest of team seven was waiting for their sensei on their training field. Only Naruto looked relatively well, Hinata was completely healed, but it was obvious that she was exhausted and Sasuke was a little battered.

„I want to kill you. I spent half of my night pulling out senbon and other weapons from my wounds." Shouted Sasuke at Kakashi, who just shrugged.

„We will keep same training as yesterday till you start working as team and your performance will be acceptable. In week time we will have team versus team spar. It will be team 8." Announced Kakashi and before they could blink first projectiles were flying towards them.

Next week was a torture for them and Naruto and rest of his team were constant guests in medics, even Sasuke managed to get convinced to let Hana heal him. They started to form some sort of bonds, which could be described as some sort of friendship.

„Good that you're all here" said Hana once both team 7 and team 8 gathered in training ground 8 for Team versus team exercises. „It will be three versus three fight, there are no rules. Excluding no maiming or killing moves and be careful with jutsu. You have thirty minutes to plan tactics and after that we will start. Kakashi will be referring and I will be second."

Teams quickly disappeared in different parts of training ground, while team 8 kept themselves to the clearing team 7 decided to hide inside forested area of training ground.

„Any plan?" asked Sasuke, who after several beatings at the hands of various people started to be less arrogant then before. It wasn't as good as it could be, but there was positive change.

„Shino is long range and weak against Katon attacks. Kiba is close range and Sakura will be either medic, or middle range, or genjutsu." Said Naruto and rest looked at him. „So I suggest that I will go against Sakura, Sasuke you take Shino and try to fry his bugs. Hinata you need to defeat Kiba."

„I like it." Said Sasuke and Hinata nodded.

„I take on Naruto-baka, Shino you will deal with Hinata and you Kiba will deal with Sasuke." Said Sakura and rest nodded. They learned that arguing with her was dangerous. So they reluctantly nodded and agreed, even if they know that chances that Sakura could defeat Naruto were slim at best.

Shino nodded and agreed to Sakura plan. But he carefully analyzed his team chances to win and in his opinion they were slim at best. His father told him that Naruto was force to be reckoned with and that he was one of strongest in current generation. Sasuke was also strong, he wasn't as strong as Naruto, but for genin he was quite strong and unpredictable in fight. Hinata was weakest out of her whole team, but there wasn't a huge gap between her and Sasuke and she was improving rapidly. His team compared to them looked like Academy students.

He was strongest out of his team, but he was maybe as strong as Sasuke and he didn't have too much chakra and his attacks were limited to his bugs. Which were good at tracking and in support role, as main attack they were useless. Few Katon jutsu and he was out of fight till he could regrow his colony. Kiba was good at taijustu and his clan jutsu, but excluding that he was mediocre at best, also his alpha mentality and brashness was a huge problem during battle and in this scenario it would be a huge problem. After all Uchiha were known for traps and knowing team 7 they would booby trap whole area. But going back to team 8 Sakura honestly was useless, she was Sasuke fangirl even if Sasuke completely ignored her and she hated Naruto for some unknown reason.

Kiba nodded, but he had really, really bad feelings about team 7. He knew that Naruto was strong, after all he saw how he was treated by Hana and that forced him to respect Naruto. After all jonins didn't show respect to anybody without damn good reason. But there was also some sort of aura around him that screamed danger and he didn't want to test it. Sasuke on one hand was in his opinion strong, but on the other he had or used to have lone wolf altitude, which might be team 7 weakness. Hinata was taijustu specialist and she was in top three of taijustu in graduating class, also she was Hyuuga which meant that her strikes were dangerous and Hyuuga were one of clans that focused on teamwork, along with polishing taijustu. Which mean troubles for his team.

Compared to team 7, his team looked bad, very bad. Sakura was damned fangirl and was fawning over Sasuke, wherever she saw him and she was hating Naruto and was showing her hostile altitude even when high ranking ninja were around. She was only quiet when she saw Naruto sensei. Shino was good, but he was mostly long range, which would be a huge problem against team 7, they were mostly close range and his kikaichu would be useless. He was good in taijustu and training in Inuzuka clan jutsu with sister helped, but he knew it won't be enough to win.

Sakura thoughts aren't worth my attention, as of yet. They will be revealed later, where more pieces of puzzle will be revealed, but now she can be pretty well described.

„Want to bet who will win?" asked Kakashi

„Nah, I know that Naruto on his own could walk right through my team without too much troubles." Said Hana and shook her head „I hope that it will break Sakura, out of her fangirl altitude."

„We will see." Said Kakashi and started walking towards middle of the clearing, it was time to get this show on the road.

„Start!" shouted Kakashi, once both teams appeared in middle of training ground. It was large clearing flanked by dense forest on almost every side of it and there was small lake to the north and few small streams near underbrush that were ending in that lake to the north. Turning most of woods near edges of clearing into muddy, sticky swamp that could stop almost everything. Naruto team disappeared into forest that was to the north from them, while team 8 hid in ones to the south.

„On three" Said Naruto and took out few Fuma shuriken and unfolded them. Once he did that he started counting. „One, two three, go" he said while hurling those shuriken towards place where was Sakura and forcing her to jump out of her hiding. Especially after they cut through tree that was in front of her and didn't lost too much momentum.

„Are you trying to kill me?" she screeched, once she jumped out of her cover and charged at Naruto, who looked surprised, responded with his own charge with kunai in his right hand.

Meanwhile Sasuke went after Shino and forced him to retreat by generous usage of Katon – Hosenka no Jutsu and since he couldn't risk too extensive damage to his hive, he was forced to recall all kikaichu. And engage in taijustu, which finished badly for him and soon he was knocked out by Sasuke. Who looked around assessing situation and going to help Hinata, who was dodging Kiba and Akamaru attacks.

At the beginning Kiba tried to attack Hinata, but she just kept weaving around his attacks and forcing him to use energy just to try to catch her.

„Stay still, so I can hit you." Shouted angry Inuzuka and was surprised, when Hinata stopped suddenly.

„If you want you can try" she said and molded some chakra to prepare for quick Kawarimi to get out of here, when Kiba will activate traps that were placed there by Naruto clones with help from Sasuke, who as Uchiha was rather good at making them. They weren't deadly, just really, really painful and dangerous. When Kiba charged straight at Hinata, he activated every single one. While some weren't dangerous they were annoying, blunt kunai launchers, senbons, flashbangs, smoke bombs and weak poison mist. After he walked through that field he looked like hell, his clothes were shredded, he was covered in multiple cuts, scratches and other flesh wounds and when Sasuke managed to catch him. He didn't even have strength to defend against him and chop to the back of his neck was enough to send him to land of unconscious.

Sakura swinged her kunai madly and when she was close enough to Naruto, she suddenly changed path of its flight and it went straight towards his throat and through it with shower of blood. When she saw that, she was so happy, her worst enemy was finally dead. That disgrace of ninja that sabotaged everything that civilian ninja worked for was dead. However her happiness turned into shock when she saw Naruto disappearing in plume of smoke and there was no blood on the ground or on kunai in her hand. In that moment her happiness turned into shock and fear, she knew that Naruto could try to

„Is she crazy?" asked Kakashi, when he saw what she did. „Good that he used Kage Bunshin, because if he was normal one Hokage would have our heads, on silver platter, same with her."

Before she could comprehend what happened she was pulled downwards by hands that emerged from the ground and caught her ankles dragging her down. Once they were done she was buried to the head in the ground.

„Doton – Shinju Zanshu no Jutsu" Said Naruto, before he emerged from the ground behind Sakura. Other genin were furious at her, same as jonin which were overseeing it. „Now Sakura-chan care to explain why did you try to kill me?" he asked in his mocking tone

„Because you're demon child and baka that shouldn't live." She shouted at him, still in shock and unaware of consequences of her actions. Naruto and jonins just shook their heads.

Hana walked to her and dragged Sakura our of the ground, by yanking her collar. She didn't show any emotions, but wasn't really gentle with her moves. Inside she was livid. „That scum. No sorry Kushina-san that piece of shit. No sorry, that mother fucking son of a bitch. She did worst thing, she is disgrace of kunoichi. I will slowly, carefully and painfully teach her why you should never, ever insult son of Red Death in front of her students and friends." Swore Hana and Kakashi. „When council will hear about that civilians will be happy, while elders and shinobi will be bloodthirsty and Hokage will be livid." Calmly thought Kakashi, after he got over previous shock.

„Where are we going?" weakly asked Sakura, once she noticed that Hana wasn't stopping and was dragging her somewhere.

„Hokage tower. Kakashi take rest of team there, once you clean the mess here." She said over her shoulder, while looking at the silver haired jonin who nodded and started ordering genin. Who were still in shock and couldn't believe what their teammate and friend just did. They should be at least comrades and such thing shouldn't ever cross their minds.

„Let's go" quietly said Kakashi, once everything was cleaned and tempers cooled off. When they arrived at the Hokage tower they were directly led to his office where already was Sakura, Hana, Yamanaka Inoichi and few ANBU.

„Since all interested parties are here. I think we can start" Said Hokage and looked at Sakura, who was almost terrified by his gaze. „Naruto can you tell me what happened?" asked older leader

„I engaged her in taijustu and she managed to stuck kunai in my throat, right after I switched with one of my Kage Bunshin. And you know that there's no difference between Kage Bunshin and real body, they look exactly the same unless someone is skilled sensor or has Byakugan active and saw original body." Explained Naruto and older shinobi blinked few times.

„She is either mentally unstable or was paid to do that or was influenced by someone to do that. But we don't have enough evidence for execution or demotion." Thought Yamanaka Inoichi, while he watched her carefully and he saw few rapid moves of her eyes and muscles.

„Haruno-san can you explain why did you do this?" asked one of ANBU. One that was commander of whole ANBU.

„I don't know. I let go my instincts." She weakly said and everybody nodded, but also sensed lie.

„I won't punish you too harshly. You will be required to do twenty D-rank missions and pass mental examination." Said Hokage and Hana let out sigh of relief. However Sakura was unaware that she was for completely new level of hell, thanks to her sensei. „All of you excluding team 7 are dismissed."

Other shinobi nodded and left the room, they saw this subtle change in Hokage face and slightly narrowed eyes. „I think it's time to reveal to you one of our greatest secrets. Truth behind events that happened on October 10th, twelve years ago." Started aged leader and there were gasps of surprise from mouth of Hinata and Sasuke. While Kakashi and Naruto didn't even blink.

„I suggest that first we deal with that pest sent here by Danzo." Said Naruto and pointed towards bookshelf in the corner. „And later completely seal this room. I believe that my father updated security measures with some Uzumaki seals."

Hokage nodded and leaped towards bookshelf and yanked out ANBU with blank mask and weird tattoo on his arm, not usual ANBU swirl. „ROOT" murmured elder leader and looked at Naruto „How did you find him?"

„Trick with ANBU tattoo, if you know proper seals you can force every single to pulse and this one didn't respond. So I assumed that he was enemy and my sensor skills picked him up the moment I entered the room." Explained Naruto and Sasuke eyes narrowed. He looked more and more interesting and he started to respect him. Hokage returned to his desk and pressed button hidden under it. Once he did that complex sealing matrices appeared all around it and lines of kanji appeared all over it. Blue light enveloped whole room and Sasuke and Hinata were shocked.

„What was that?" asked Sasuke

„Security measures. We don't want anybody to see and hear our talk, there are secrets that are so vigorously guarded that the less know, the better. As of now content of this is S-rank secret and you can't reveal without my or Naruto agreement." Sternly said Hokage „Ask no questions till he finish."

„Hai" Replied Sasuke and Hinata

„Let's start with Senju Hashirama and his wife Uzumaki Mito. Everybody remember story about Valley of End fight?" asked Naruto and they nodded. „Good. It will be way easier. As you remember Senju Hashirama defeated Uchiha Madara, but he also defeated Kyubi who after that was sealed inside of Uzumaki Mito, from Royal Line of Uzumaki clan. When she was old and dying, my mother Red Death Uzumaki Kushina was brought to Konoha to have Kyubi sealed inside her. Twelve years ago she was giving birth to me in undisclosed location and somehow she was attacked by unknown Uchiha, who ripped Kyubi out of her after she gave birth. Jinchuuriki seal is weakest when body is under immense stress and giving birth is one of such situations. My father was forced to sacrifice himself and seal Kyubi chakra in me. That's most important part of story. Now details, jinchuuriki are people that have bijuu sealed inside them. There are always nine such people in the world and being jinchuuriki gives certain advantages to host of bijuu. But you're usually mistreated by villagers, because they can't recognize difference between kunai or shuriken and the storage scroll." Explained Naruto and Hinata and Sasuke were somewhat shocked by such revelations. They suspected things about Naruto, especially Sasuke who knew that Itachi was assigned missions to protect certain boy. One that looked way too close to Naruto to be someone else. Hinata knew because of her father, who said few positive things about Naruto on her team. Like he knew something about him that wasn't a common knowledge.

„So that's why you were treated like trash and called demon" Said Sasuke, too shocked to say anything else

„Yes. While most shinobi can see difference between kunai and storage scroll, most of civilian ones don't know even basics of fuinjutsu." Said Naruto „So for them I'm reincarnation of Kyubi."

„That's terrible." Said Hinata and rest nodded

„You wonder why I decided to tell you know? Don't you?" asked Hokage and everybody nodded „Because you need to know how to fight along such person and so you can fully accept him, Sasuke you almost look like second half of Naruto."

„That weird ball that you made from chakra was one of your jinchuuriki abilities?" asked Sasuke, suddenly remembering this weird ball used by Naruto

„Yes and no." Said Naruto and created in his palm Rasengan „That's normal version, that one is bijuu version." He said once it turned violet. After that he dispersed it and looked at Hokage.

„Last thing. You can talk about it between yourself and with anybody privy to this secret. You can't talk about it with your friends, unless Naruto allows you. Is everything clear?" asked aged leaded and everybody nodded.

„Good. We will resume training on day after tomorrow. Tomorrow is day for you to digest information about bijuu and jinchuuriki and as homework read scrolls about them, so you can understand it better." Said Kakashi and let his team go, but first Hokage disabled seals.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N Corner – Update is so fast, because of three things. Sharingan Siblings are being rewritten, Third story is being written and should be released around first weekend of April. And finally I have huge stockpile of episodes ready to release.

sweetCRAZYangel – it will get more interesting. About updates. I try to do that once per week.

About Tsunade seal. It gives her perfect chakra control and giant chakra battery, which is necessary for her super strength. Because it's based on precise chakra control and this seal enhance whole body and add regenerative abilities similar to Kyubi chakra, but it's much faster.

After that fateful day team mechanics changed, they seemed to look at Naruto in completely different light. For first time in ages Sasuke started be more open and less arrogant. It wasn't much, but compared to his previous behavior it was huge change. He didn't have a person with similar experience to support him and Naruto was that kind of person.

„So that's why he was out of public eye for last few years." Said Sasuke, when he had time to digest information and think about them without any biases.

„Yes. But also so he could master Mokuton, which requires perfect mastery of Doton and Suiton." Added Kakashi, who just appeared and was even earlier than Naruto, which was weird. „Can you honestly tell me what you think about Naruto?"

„Well. He is walking chakra tank and is pretty good shinobi. Also seems like nice enough person." Quietly said Sasuke and Kakashi nodded.

„Yes. He is friendly and helpful." Added Hinata

„And what could be heard from civilians about him?" asked them Kakashi

„Demon brat, demon, demon child and few other" Said Sasuke and his sensei nodded.

„Yes, that's one of best cases where you should check data in multiple sources. Are you ready for today training?" he added in more cheerful tone once Naruto appeared

„Yes." Answered his students in unison.

„Good, today we will check your chakra affinity." Said Kakashi and gave them chakra papers „Channel your chakra." He ordered and watched results. When he saw Naruto paper he almost fainted, it split in two and one part of it grew leaves, while second turned into ash. „Impossible, I never suspected to see child with so many affinities."

„Can you explain what happened?" Said Sasuke and Kakashi nodded

„Leaves are sign of Mokuton, which equals to Suiton and Doton. Split is Fuuton and ash is Katon. Now you Sasuke." Said jonin and looked at paper in Sasuke hand. It wrinkled and burned into ash. „Katon and Raiton. Hard to say which is primary, propably both. Last but not least Hinata." Hyuuga heiress nodded and focused chakra into paper and it dampened. „Suiton, unexpected from Hyuuga and no wonders that you have problems with Juuken."

„What do you mean by that?" asked Hinata and Kakashi scratched his chin, thinking about good explanation

„Juuken is designed for Doton, not Suiton. So when you're learning Juuken, at least standard version of it you're fighting with yourself." Explained Kakashi and Hinata nodded „I will talk with Hiashi-sama about it. He should see the reason to allow me to help you with training, I'm not Hyuuga, but I copied a lot of moves from different styles and some of them will help you with your Juuken."

„What about actual training?" asked Naruto

„Hmm. I will show Sasuke basics of Raiton manipulation, while you will do same thing with Suiton and Hinata." Said Kakashi and Naruto nodded

„Can you teach me basics of Raiton? I need it for certain version of Rasengan, I need to stabilize it and I don't have idea how to do it without Raiton." Said blonde

„Fine." Replied cyclops and was surrounded by few hundred clones of Naruto.

„Dispel in tens, every ten to twenty minutes." Ordered Naruto and let go clones with Kakashi and Sasuke to second part of forest.

„Hinata activate your Byakugan and see what I'm doing" Said Naruto, before he started slowly pushing his chakra into leaf, making it soak.

„You're pushing your chakra and soaking the leaf" she said, once she saw what he was doing and how he was doing that.

„Exactly. Your task is to do the same. Once you learn Suiton manipulation really good you can use moisture from air and water from plants." Said Naruto and forced moisture from surrounding plants to focus on his hand. „You have naturally good control, so it shouldn't be too hard for you and in meantime I will work on my own project."

„Okay" Replied Hinata and was trying to do it, while Naruto clone was watching over. Original was reading some weird black scroll and he was solely focused on it.

„It doesn't make sense. He says that souls are bound to body of sacrifice, but on the other hand destroying sacrifice won't sent them to Pure Land." Shouted angry Naruto, after reading and reading scroll. „I hate Nidaime kinjutsu. Understanding them is so hard that almost impossible and they're dangerous."

„What are you talking about?" asked Hinata, who was trying to soak leaf and was doing that without too much success.

„Nothing important." Replied much calmer Naruto and she reluctantly nodded. In similar manner with addition of old training regime team trained day after day and almost month later Kakashi decided they're ready for first true mission. They were doing missions before, but they were just enough to fulfill bare minimum and were mostly done by Naruto clones, while team was training.

Back to day of incident...

After team 8 left the room Hana dragged her students to one of more secluded training fields, one where she could shout and yell without too many questions from other shinobi.

„Sakura can you tell me why did you do that?" she quietly asked, while leaking some killing intent at her pink haired excuse of genin.

„Because he is demon child and baka." Replied younger kunoichi and took few steps backwards when she felt full extent of Hana killing intent.

„You are aware that for such words you could be killed on the spot?" asked Hana

„Why?"

„Because of Sandaime laws" Explained Hana „I don't know what did you hear at home about Naruto, but I won't allow you to so blatantly disrespect him. You're genin, not some civilian and as such you need to behave properly. Someday you will be fighting under his command or in his squad and you need to forgot any biases and arguments that you have with your comrades."

„But..." tried to protest Sakura

„No buts. You're off the Hokage hook, but not mine. Now shut up and it's time for your punishment. Since you need to do twenty D-rank missions..." Hana extended last word and looked at Kiba. „It happens that our kennels need cleaning and you will do that as your next twenty D-rank."

„Yatta! Finally I won't need to do that" shouted Kiba

„Yes. But now training, for next six hours you need to escape my ninken." She said and her ninken growled in agreement and looked at genin, who gulped and started running as fast as they could. With ninken jaws snapping inches behind their backs and those ninken were rather big, not a puppy that was partner of Kiba, but fully grown ones and their jaws were full of big and nasty teeth.

„Honey what happened to you?" asked Haruno Mebuki once she saw her daughter covered in blood, sweat, grime and flesh wounds that closely resembled bite marks of giant ninken.

„Sensei was angry for accident that happened during training." Managed to say Sakura, before she passed out from exhaustion and pain.

Dozens minutes later Sakura woke up in her bed and was still pale, but looked better than before.

„Can you tell me what happened?" asked her mother

„I almost killed that demon brat during training and sensei was livid about it. She decided to punish me for that by twenty days of kennel duty in Inuzuka compound and today exercise which was basically dodging and avoiding her ninken jaws." Explained Sakura and her mother face was showing happiness and pride.

„Good job with that attempt to kill him, we're one step closer to getting rid of him. I will try to dig you out of this mess and try to punish Naruto." Mebuki reassured Sakura and gently tapped her shoulder.

Current time, team seven training ground...

„I think you're ready for your first true mission. Meet me at the Hokage tower in twenty minutes." Said Kakashi and disappeared before anybody could mutter a word.

Twenty minutes later Team Kakashi was standing in the mission office waiting for Hokage to assign a mission for them.

„Hokage-sama may I request C-rank mission for my team?" asked Kakashi, while looking at his team, which honestly looked more than ready for such thing.

„Yes. And I have perfect mission for you. It's courier duty to Iwagakure no Sato." Said Hokage and at the same time, Naruto and Kakashi moved uncomfortably.

„I don't want to be disrespectful, but considering my parents and how are they treated in Iwa is it safe for me to go there?" asked Naruto

„Yes. Never mind." Said Hokage and threw scroll behind him and it fall into box with similar that was under the window. „But this one should be perfect, same type of mission, but Kirigakure no Sato."

„I think we will take it." Said Kakashi and his team nodded. „Prepare for month of travel. We shouldn't meet anything worse than bandits."

Thirty minutes later team 7 was waiting for their sensei at the gates of Konoha, everybody was excited it was their first serious mission and first time traveling to other country. Wait for everybody? Nope. Naruto already was to Tetsu no Kuni during Gokage summit.

„Where is our sensei?" Growled Naruto „He will be late even for his own funeral."

„Ma, ma, don't be so hasty Naruto." Said Kakashi, who just jumped down from one of trees that were growing all around the road. „Now we are going to Kiri and it will take some time. So control your speed, we don't want to exhaust ourselves."

„Why did you reject first mission?" asked Hinata „And what about your parents and Iwa?"

„Because of their Bingo book. I'm in it and we don't want Naruto to be placed there so soon. About his parents? Well Kiiroi Senko and Red Death are hated in Iwa, so the further from it, the safer Naruto is. So Kiri was far better place to be than Iwa." Replied Kakashi. But that was only theory and simple courier duty turned into something more...

In undisclosed location...

„So you want me to murder Senju Naruto for thirty million ryo plus whatever I can get for his weapons and bounties that are on his teammates?" asked Rokusho Aoi

„Yes. You also will be granted pardon from all your crimes by Konoha council." Said very feminine voice and there was seen flash of pink hairs. „And jonin position and Senju compound."

„You got me. So where are they?" asked soon to be rich, if everything went as planned Aoi

„On the road to Kirigakure."

„Okay, give me two weeks and you will have their heads." Said Aoi and disappeared in swirl of leaves taking all papers provided by this person.

„Is it only me or are we followed?" quietly asked Hinata, while looking at her sensei.

„We are. Two chunins in the genjutsu on the road five hundred meters in front of us and weak jonin two hundred to the east." Said Naruto and Kakashi nodded

„You will deal with chunin, while I will take care of that jonin. Do not kill them, I would like to question them."

„Hai" Replied younger members of team and Kakashi disappeared to take care of wannabe assassin.

„Sasuke, Hinata can you take care of left one?" quietly asked Naruto, when they were hundred meters before place where supposed ambush should happen.

„Yes, you want to deal with right one?" asked Sasuke

„Yep." Replied Naruto and slightly moved his swords. So they would be easier to take out, but excluding that nobody could tell that all of his muscles were tense and he was ready to sprang into action at moment notice. When they walked past puddle of water two people emerged from it with chain between them and gauntlets on second hand.

Hinata quickly fell into opening stance of Juuken and went after one to the left and before he could blink he was unconscious, his brother didn't fare well. He was knocked out by Naruto chop to the neck and in matter of seconds it was over. Sasuke and Naruto quickly tied them with some ninja wire and dragged to nearby tree.

„I swear I saw those faces." Murmured Naruto and started looking through Bingo book, that he always kept on himself. „Bingo. Demon brothers from Kiri, Gozu and Meizu. C-rank threat three milion if delivered separately, twelve if together. Masters of poison and ambush, chunin before desertion."

„You are right." Said Kakashi who appeared behind them with body slung over his shoulder and weird sword in second hand.

„Raijin no Ken?" asked Naruto, when he noticed blade in Kakashi hand

„Yes and Rokusho Aoi, now from Ame, previously from Konoha. I wonder who paid them to do their dirty job and who was the target. For me they're too weak, for Naruto honestly speaking too. Sasuke might have problems with them or might not. Hinata would be a problem for them, they're tai or kenjutsu specialists. So someone underestimated someone and hired those three to kill him or her." Said Kakashi and placed wannabe assasin, near his knocked out companions.

„Guessing by their hitai-ate I would say that one that did this try to break alliance between Kiri and Konoha. And it's very hush hush type of alliance and only councils know about it." Said Naruto

„Of course. So propably civilian council is once again meddling with international relations. Kiri has no interest in breaking alliance, actually it's godsend for them." Added Kakashi

„Maybe we should ask those three?" Said Naruto and pointed to waking up enemies

„Ah yes. See ya in few minutes." Said Kakashi and disappeared with prisoners for few moments, sudden moment of quiet was interrupted by few cries and it was over. „You were right Naruto about who sent them. But we will deal with it once we're back in Konoha."

„You don't trust messengers?" asked Naruto and Kakashi nodded. „As do I. Even summons were losing their messages, especially when civilian council was meddling with affairs of village."

„Problem is that it increase rank mission to at least A-rank, if not S-rank. It's up to you if you want to finish it." Said Kakashi in his business like voice

„I want to do that. It's our first mission outside of village and I believe we will be able to handle any problems." Said Sasuke and Naruto nodded

„Since you want to continue. I think we may speed up, we don't know if they had any accomplice, so it will be safer if we move at combat speed and not using main roads until we are in Mizu no Kuni. Than we need to go slower, so we aren't considered a threat by their forces and thus we aren't attacked." Ordered Kakashi and everybody nodded. After that they sped off towards Kiri shocking many merchants and other travellers that saw them, or rather after image of them.

„Naruto why Leaf in your hitai-ate is red?" asked Sasuke, when they were running

„So you can ask questions." Replied Naruto and everybody rolled their eyes „But seriously it's one of symbols of my rank."

„What rank? You're just genin." Said Sasuke

„On paper yes. In reality nope. I have Kage level access to secret data and as you remember I was on Gokage meeting." Replied Naruto and Kakashi nodded. As sensei he had full access to reports from missions perform by his genin and their resumes. When he was reading Naruto one he was shocked by data that was inside of it.

„Gokage summit? What's that?" asked Hinata

„Meeting of Hokage, Kazekage, Tsuchikage, Raikage, Mizukage and their respective advisors and bodyguards. They're meetings on which are made decisions concerning all countries and if there are disputes between various villages they are solved on such meetings." Explained Kakashi

„But usually it's more of get together of leaders and you can sleep through it without missing too much. But I think we are getting close to Kiri, Aoi one of Mizukage bodyguards is around five kilometers in front of us." Said Naruto and Kakashi nodded and looked with his Sharingan.

„You are right and he also noticed us." Agreed Kakashi, few minutes later they landed onto ground in front of Aoi.

„Kakashi-san, Naruto-san and those two are who?" asked Aoi, when he saw them

„Ah yes. You only saw Naruto on Kage summit and fought me during last war. Naruto is on my genin team and those two are Uchiha Sasuke and Hyuuga Hinata." Said Kakashi, while scratching back of his hand. „We are here to deliver message to Mizukage-sama."

„I presume data concerning things discussed during last summit?" asked Aoi

„Not here and not now. In somewhere more private. I believe we have tails four that came from Konoha and other four from Kiri." Said Naruto and Aoi eye widened and suddenly veins around his left eye bulged out.

„Yes. Some rebels are still alive and try to attack forces loyal to Mizukage. About those four that came from Konoha they look like ones that assaulted our shinobi previously." Said Aoi and Kakashi eye widened. He wasn't privy to that data, only few people in whole Konoha knew what ROOT did to other villages.

„We will deal with Konoha ones and support you with Kiri ones." Said Kakashi and Aoi nodded. In meantime Naruto took out one of swords „Naruto can you give me one of swords?" asked Kakashi and Naruto nodded and threw second at him. Jonin caught it and swinged it few times to get used to it and nodded approvingly, as good as it used to be during Third War.

„Naruto take two to the right. I will take those two to the left. Sasuke, Hinata stay out of this." Ordered Kakashi and his students nodded while he and Naruto charged toward their opponents, who didn't even manage to blink before they were killed. Ninja treated ninjutsu like last resort, if they could finish fight with simple weapons or taijustu they used it. Ninjutsu was flashy, loud, took a lot of time to prepare and was more demanding that normal taijustu attack, even with chakra to enhance strength of blows. Especially when fighting against much weaker opponents, which couldn't be a challenge for them.

„You know kenjutsu?" asked Sasuke, after fight was over

„Yes. Family tradition and sensei kinda forced me to learn it and I learned it from best of all swordsmen. Uzumaki clan." Said Kakashi

„They were ones that created Seven Blades of Mist and wrote seals on them that gave them their unique abilities." Added Aoi, who just finished his fight. „We need to get going. Mizukage-sama is a a little impatient."

„At least she can somehow control her temper." Countered Naruto, while looking at Aoi

„That's true. Compared to Raikage she looks like embodiment of patience." Admitted her advisor and when those words left his mouth they arrived at Kiri gates.

Kirigakure no Sato wasn't a one village it was more of multiple compounds and villages scattered on small islands surrounding Mizukage Mannion, which was partially carved into peak of extinct volcanos. It was almost impossible to spot from afar, because better part of it was constantly covered by mist and even if it wasn't covered by it. It was showing only small parts of it and seals etched into walls of buildings were making sure that seeing them was hard.

„It looks impressive, but I can tell that a lot of those buildings is unused" Casually said Kakashi and watched Aoi for reaction.

„Yes. Some of Kekkei Genkai clans still hadn't returned and most of civilians are still returning and we are eliminating last pockets of resistance all over the city." Admitted Aoi and guards let them pass when they saw who was bringing in Konoha shinobi.

„Is everybody carrying sword in this village?" asked Sasuke, when he saw that almost every shinobi had some sort of blade at his belt or on his back

„No, but we have one of best swordsmen. Since you will be staying for a week or two I think it will be possible to arrange for some kenjutsu lessons." Said Aoi and Sasuke nodded

„But now we need to get business with Mizukage out of the way." Said cheerfully Kakashi, while dragging rest of group towards Mizukage mansion, where they were immediately ushered into her office. Kakashi and Sasuke were stunned by her beauty, while Naruto somehow managed to save his senses and gently patted them, breaking them out of their stupor. However Kakashi was more shocked by man that was standing behind Mizukage.

„Is that..." He quietly asked Naruto

„Yagura, Yondaime Mizukage and jinchuuriki of Isobu better known as Sanbi." Blonde finished for him

„Mizukage-sama Hokage-sama asked us to deliver you this scroll." Said Kakashi and placed small black scroll on her desk. She quickly read it and nodded approvingly.

„Okay we will get it done. For now everybody excluding Aoi, Naruto and Yagura please leave the room." She said and shocked almost whole Konoha team.

„But..." managed to say Kakashi, when Naruto placed hand on his shoulder

„You're not cleared for that stuff so leave, please sensei." Quietly said his student and Kakashi reluctantly nodded. And once they left Mizukage and Naruto ran through a chain of handseals which activated privacy and security seals all around the office and made everything that was spoken stay inside of it. After that they moved to cushions that were placed around small table in room connected to her office, where was waiting for them tea and sake.

„Is everything true in that scroll?" asked Terumi Mei, who suspected a thing or two about that scroll.

„It is, but it is only outer layer of things. I was given second scroll by Hokage with more important data. It's protected by old Kage seal, one that all of Kage have." He said and gave it to Mei, who took her ring and pressed it onto seal etched onto outside of scroll. When she did that there was small poof of smoke and scroll opened.

„It looks interesting and thanks to it we know what happened to Samehada and Kisame. I never suspected he was Hokage spy inside Akatsuki. Also this plot with Uchiha Itachi is ingenious. So those two won't catch you or Yagura, unless forced?" Mei murmured once she read content of it.

„Yes. There are few drop points where are they leaving messages, but for more you need to talk with Jiraiya." He replied

„Jiraiya as in Jiraiya the Toad Sage?" asked Aoi

„Yes. Do you accept to our proposition?" quietly asked Naruto after few more minutes of negotiations

„Give me two weeks to think and consult with council. Aoi show them their rooms and provide everything they need or want." Said Mizukage and rose from her seat followed by Naruto, Yagura and Aoi.

„Two weeks vacation at the expense of Mizukage. I like it" said Naruto, while stretching comfortably in one of chairs that were set in their rooms.

„Not so fast. We can train and will, not as hard as usual, but a light training will be enough and maybe for Sasuke some kenjutsu, but first water walking after all we're in Kiri where there's more of water than land." Said Kakashi who appeared leaning against door

„Kenjutsu?" asked Sasuke, hopeful that he would learn new skill

„Yes. Meet me on the ground behind hotel. Naruto do not wear armor, there's no point in doing this and it will slow you down." Said Kakashi before disappearing with poof of smoke. Naruto strapped to his back his two swords and left to the area behind hotel where he quickly went through his stretching exercises. It was one of better areas to train kenjutsu or sword fighting, it was flat and there weren't many bushes or trees in the way.

„Water walking?" asked Sasuke, who learned better not to question his sensei

„Yes. Same principle as tree walking, but you need to constantly fine tune strength of pulses. Too strong and you will be send into the air, too weak and you won't be able to support your body. It's called water walking, but it can be used to walk over swamps or quicksand." Explained Kakashi and his students nodded and tried. Naruto didn't have problem with it, because he learned that few years ago and he could use Suiton to support himself. While Sasuke and Hinata were struggling with it, although Hinata had some success. She used her Byakugan to see how Naruto did it and she tried to mimic his moves and did it quite good.

„Naruto how can you have so good chakra control? You have biggest pool in whole village and yet you have chakra control way better than mine." Asked Sasuke, who felt a little jealous

„Training, training, training and clan ability. Senju were known for good control of their chakra, add to that requirements for certain family jutsu and you have answer how." Explained Naruto and Kakashi nodded. He saw his sensei working on chakra control almost all the time.

„Family jutsu?" asked Hinata

„Rasengan and Hiraishin" Replied Kakashi and scratched his chin „Teaching you Rasengan, might not be a bad idea. It boosts chakra control and capacity, but I won't do it here and now. It's too easy to copy and you don't have enough chakra for it."

„What do you mean by too easy?" asked Sasuke, who was trying to keep his balance on the surface of water

„It's pure chakra manipulation, no seals needed." Replied Naruto, who was trying to balance on senbon

„I think that's enough of chakra control for all of us." Said Kakashi and walked onto ground „Naruto can you give me your swords? I don't have any training ones on myself, so I need to use yours for Sasuke training."

„No problem." Said Naruto and took our his swords and threw them at Kakashi, who grabbed them out of the air. „I will work on kunai and shuriken accuracy." After that Naruto placed ten targets in different spots at different distance from his position and few were in his blind zone.

„How are you going to hit all of them?" asked Sasuke

„Watch and admire." Said Naruto before grabbing eight kunai, jumping into the air, spinning and throwing eight kunai and quickly grabbing two additional from his holster and throwing them as well. There were ten soft thuds and ten targets were hit.

„Impressive. I wonder if Yamato showed you improved version of this." Said Kakashi impressed by his genin performance

„You mean twenty targets?" asked Naruto with raised eyebrow

„Yes. It's way harder, but if he allowed you to use Fuma Shuriken you propably learned it and mastered." Said Kakashi

„I can do that. But not here, once we leave Kiri I will do that and maybe teach Sasuke how to do that. He needs to unlock Sharingan to use it to fullest extent." Replied Naruto and sat on tree branch and watched Kakashi show Sasuke basic kenjutsu moves of ANBU style. It was style based on quick and economical strikes, based more on finesse and speed than on strength. For Sasuke it was better than typical style used by Konoha which was based on brute strength and not so much finesse, he wasn't simply built for it. He was built for one based on speed and agility, once he unlock his Sharingan he would be even more deadly with it.

The day before they were scheduled to leave Kakashi decided to do some equipment shopping, mostly swords for Sasuke and himself. His family heirloom was lost and he needed one and Kiri sword makers were simply better than Konoha one. And since they were allowed to freely move around Kiri they could do that now.

„I think this shop will do." Said Kakashi and pointed at small shop, connected with forge to his right. „Master sword maker, propably it's family business passed down from generation to generation." He explained and everybody nodded. When they entered they were quickly noticed by owner who come out to greet them.

„How can I help you?" he politely asked once they looked around

„We need two swords, one for me and one for my genin. Full length katana or ninjato." Explained Kakashi and shopkeeper nodded and disappeared for a moment behind a counter and once he appeared he brought two small, yet long wooden cases.

„Relics salvaged from ruins of Uzushiogakure. Not as good as Shiroikiba or Kurokiba that one of your students have, but still one of their better weapons." He said while opening cases. Inside were two katana in black sheath, with simple guard and grip was made out of black wood and was covered in red silk ribbon. When Kakashi took out one out of it sheath he saw steel gray blade with seals etched in it and with wave like pattern that was visible on good steel and noticed certain signs, but he managed to hide his shock.

„How much for both?" he asked

„Million and five hundred thousand ryo." Replied owner and Kakashi only nodded and took out his wallet and counted money, before handling it to owner who happily took it and gave swords to Kakashi.

„He doesn't know what he sold." Said Kakashi, once they were outside „I'm sure Naruto that you saw those marks on blades, only one sword making school left them."

„Masamuse?" asked Naruto with raised eyebrow

„Yes. That's why I decided to buy them." Said Kakashi and with that remark they returned to hotel. Where Sasuke tried different styles of carrying it and decided to strap it to his back, so it wouldn't limit his moves and was easy to get when needed. He tried to spar with Naruto, but he only got defeated, quite easily.

„How can he be so good in kenjutsu? Some moves were incredible." He murmured afterwards

„Well, he is Uzumaki. But still not as good as his mother." Said Kakashi and Sasuke looked at him, questions visible in his eyes „She managed to kill whole Iwa platoon using only her swords." When Sasuke heard those words he closed his mouth with audible click and didn't say a word about it.

On next day they were once again brought to Mizukage office where Mizukage and her advisors were waiting for them.

„I decided to accept your Hokage offer. Here are details." She said before giving scroll to Kakashi, who took it and slightly bowed

„Thank you Mizukage-sama." Replied Kakashi and left the room, followed by his genin. They quickly left the Kiri and once they were outside of Mizu no Kuni and deep inside Hi no Kuni they were surrounded by twelve ANBU lookalikes.

„Those aren't normal ANBU." Said Naruto once he saw their masks and noticed what they wore. „I would say they're ROOT."

„Yes, they're ROOT and guessing by their amount, they once again underestimated me." Said Kakashi „Kill them, they're not on Hokage orders." He added and gripped hilt of his sword, his actions were mimicked by Naruto and Sasuke, while Hinata fell into open stance of Juuken with active Byakugan. ANBU took out their tanto with cut end of it and charged at team 7 three went after each member, while Kakashi and Naruto didn't have problems with keeping them at bay and defeating them. Hinata and Sasuke were hard pressed, until Sasuke moves suddenly became fluid and he was able to predict their auctions.

Kakashi had three hardest opponents, three Captains of those teams. But he knew he had range advantage over his enemies. He raised his hitai-ate and revealed Sharingan hidden under it and quickly moved towards his first target, who managed to raise his blade and block his strike. But he couldn't do much to block one that followed first, thanks to Sharingan Kakashi was able to avoid blade of tanto and his katana licked his enemy side. He instinctively let down his guard and caught wounded place and that was his end, Kakashi katana quickly severed his head. After that Kakashi blocked strikes from enemies number two and three and thanks to Sharingan he managed to avoid their blocks and severe tendons in enemy number two arm and quickly after that he cut his throat. Enemy number three couldn't do much and tried in fury defeat Kakashi by sheer strength and ferocity of those attack, but he managed only to get two wounds on arms and finally he lost his head, when he miscalculated where Kakashi strike would land.

Naruto fight was even more one sided, his opponents were weaker than ones that went after Kakashi and he had two swords. Which in such fights made huge difference, he could use one to block attacks, while using second to attack and many fell for this trick. And that was the case in this situation, he quickly killed enemy number one, who was foolish enough to underestimate him. Enemy number two and three were more cautions and synchronized their attacks, forcing him to be careful, but Naruto managed to disable one by licking his leg with katana and thus making that leg useless. He quickly used it and quickly stabbed that enemy in the chest and killed him and before last enemy could move Naruto used his second sword to cut his throat. Those were his first kills and once fighting was over and adrenaline stopped flowing through his bloodstream, he quickly rushed into bushes where he vomited.

Sasuke at the beginning was focused on blocking his enemies and just surviving, but after receiving few cuts his eyesight suddenly got better and he was able to see his enemy moves. He quickly managed to disable enemy one and two, before last one could blink he was killed. Sasuke had similar reaction to Naruto and too rushed into nearest bushes to vomit.

Hinata thanks to Juuken was able to knock out enemies, it took her most time out of whole four but she managed to do that, even if it took her longest.

When fight was over there were nine dead and three knocked out ROOT, Kakashi walked to Naruto and Sasuke and gently patted them onto shoulder.

„Naruto, Sasuke I know that's hard, but you need to get over it. Over time it's getting easier, but it can't be too easy. You need to find a reason, why you kill, to justify it. Here you killed to protect yourself and your teammates." He said in his soothing voice and let them get over it. He knew that best medicine was time and thinking, there was no quick and easy solution to it.

After twenty minutes they were ready to continue their travel, they sealed bodies and alive root into scrolls to give them to Hokage, who would love to question them.

„Sasuke look at your eyes." Suddenly said Naruto and Sasuke took out kunai, his eyes widened and on his face appeared big grin when he saw reflection of them. He finally unlocked his Sharingan. With only two tomoes, but still it was a Sharingan.

„Sharingan." He weakly said and Kakashi patted his shoulder

„Good job. I will help you with training it once we are in Konoha, now cut flow of your chakra to eyes. You don't want to suffer chakra exhaustion." Said silver haired jonin.

Few hours later they arrived at the gates of Konoha and chunin that were at the guard duty were shocked by state of their clothes, they were covered in blood and expressions on team faces were grim. They didn't question them, because they didn't want to get Kakashi angry and they let them pass. Once inside team quickly made its way to Hokage tower, where they were guided to Hokage office. Mission of rank higher than D required oral report, they were simply too important to be handed by one of administrative chunin.

„Hokage-sama team 7 reporting from C-rank, upgraded to A-rank and later to S-rank." Announced his secretary and Hokage eyes widened when he heard last phrase.

„Let them in. I was expecting them and tell Ibiki to expect new guests in T&I." Replied Hokage and once team was inside of his office, he glared at Kakashi. „Kakashi report what happened."

„We were ordered to deliver simple scroll to Kirigakure no Sato, when we were day of travel from village we were assaulted by Rokusho Aoi and Demon brothers. Which were quickly defeated by us, interrogated and sealed inside prisoner scroll. After that we decided to finish mission, I knew that between me and Naruto we were able to defeat most of A-rank threats. We safely arrived at Kirigakure where we gave scroll to Mizukage and waited two weeks for her response. Once we were given response we left Kirigakure no Sato and traveled towards Konoha. When we were around six hours away from Konoha we were attacked by twelve ANBU lookalike, which were later confirmed to be from ROOT. We quickly dispatched them and hurry up to Konoha." Reported Kakashi and Hokage face hardened, those were troubling news.

„Why didn't you report meeting with Rokusho Aoi?" asked aged leader

„I feared that someone will intercept our message. They were hired by Haruno Mebuki to assassinate Naruto." Replied Kakashi and on Hokage face appeared fury for a moment, before it was hidden behind his usual mask.

„I see. You choose correct option. Now about those ROOT can you tell me who was their target?" asked aged leader.

„I think it could be me. I finally unlocked Sharingan." Suddenly said Sasuke

„I see. I won't place information about it in our data and I will also assign two additional ANBU squads to patrol Uchiha compound." Said Hokage and Sasuke nodded. Not mentioning Sharingan slightly hurt his pride, but it was better choice out of two bad ones. „But that's minor problem." Added Hokage and looked at Naruto.

„You think about those nuke-nin?" asked Naruto

„Yes." Simply said Hokage and stared at portraits of Hokage in front of him. „Neko!" he added way louder

„Yes, Hokage-sama" said purple haired ANBU that appeared in front of his desk.

„Arrest Haruno Mebuki, her husband and daughter, under charges of treason, attempted assassination and bribery." Ordered Hokage and his ANBU nodded and disappeared. „Now, about you. You will receive S-rank mission pay and half of bounties that are on those shinobi. Also you have vacation till end of week." Said Hokage and they understood it was order to leave his office


	6. Chapter 6

Team 8 was peacefully and lazily training on their usual training ground, unaware of what was happening in other parts of village. Not yet aware, it was going to change, really, really soon as a matter of fact. Suddenly they were surrounded by three squads of ANBU with drawn weapons.

„Haruno Sakura you're under arrest." Said one of ANBU, while other two walked to her to restrain her and before anybody could notice what was going on, they were gone with Sakura.

„What was that?" asked Kiba, when he saw what happened

„Propably someone found evidence to arrest her. Don't really know, at least not officially." Shrugged off Hana and Kiba somewhat nodded.

Meanwhile in other part of Konoha. Haruno Mebuki was awaiting return of hired nuke-nin when she felt that she couldn't move. When she looked around he noticed four new presences inside of the room.

„Haruno Mebuki you're under arrest." Said one of them

„I'm council member and you can't arrest me." She screeched

„We can. You're under arrest on Hokage-sama orders. Tori restrain her." Ordered Neko and mentioned ANBU nodded and quickly tied her hands behind her back. Before anybody could blink they were gone with prisoner.

Through the gates of Konoha was walking person last seen here over twelve years ago, it was Toad Sage Jiraiya, one of Densetsu no Sannin, student of Sandaime Hokage and teacher of Yondaime Hokage. „Sensei said it's urgent. I wonder what it is." He mused while walking towards Hokage tower and up its wall, he rarely used doors, he preferred using windows to get inside the room.

„Jiraiya how many times I need to tell you that there is thing called door?" asked his irate sensei, once he spotted him.

„Too many." Replied his student and leaped inside. „You said in your messages that you need me here and now. Care to enlight me why?"

„Two things. Minato legacy and tracking down Tsunade." Said Sarutobi and chuckled when he saw look of horror on Jiraiya face.

„She will kill me. But Minato legacy sounds interesting." Replied Jiraiya

„No she won't. It's too long for her to ignore her family and about Naruto he needs to get Toad summoning contract and you need to teach him sealing. He should be in Senju compound and has week long break after his last mission, so you should be able to catch him." Said Hokage and Toad Sage nodded.

„Week long break? That kind is assigned after S-rank. Don't tell me he just came back from S-rank." Said almost pale Jiraiya

„He did. It was supposed to be simple courier mission to Kiri, but they ran into few unexpected obstacles. About tracking Tsunade you will have Team 7 accompany you." Said Hokage and gave Jiraiya four folders and mission scroll. Which were opened by him and quickly read.

„Not bad. Kakashi is as good as usual, Naruto looks promising, Uchiha might be useful, especially if he has Sharingan, Hyuuga is always nice." Said Jiraiya, once he read it.

„He has Sharingan, but it's not in official data. During last mission they ran into ROOT and we don't want Danzo to be even more brave." Replied Hokage and Jiraiya nodded. It made sense. „Now go meet your godson, he has inhuman strength of Senju and Uzumaki temper." Added chuckling Hokage and Jiraiya paled. He didn't like it, not at all, last time it ended with twenty six broken bones, concussion and human shaped hole in the wall.

„I will see him." Said Jiraiya and jumped out of the window ran towards Senju compound, which wasn't hard go find. After all it was one of biggest inside whole village, bigger problem was with getting inside. It was riddled with seals, traps and other gifts for unwanted visitors. Thanks to his previous visits here he knew how to pass them without getting poisoned, turned into senbon pincushion, burned and paralyzed. Finding Naruto wasn't hard, he was like giant chakra beacon if anybody had slightest sensing skills.

„Gaki, you should learn how to mask your chakra." Said Jiraiya, once he was directly behind Naruto, who jumped and looked who was standing behind him.

„White hairs, hitai-ate with kanji for oil, red marks on face. That's Jiraiya." Thought Naruto, once he took a careful look of person behind him.

„Jiraiya, I see that you finally decided to see your godson." Carefully said Naruto, with slight amount of venom in his voice. When Jiraiya took few steps backwards, he rose with smile on his face. „But I'm happy that I can finally meet."

„I would visit you sooner, but we couldn't risk getting more attention focused on you. Talking about attention, we need to work on your stealth, sensei told me that you want to sign Toad summoning and learn seals, but first we need to work on hiding your chakra. You're giant chakra beacon and it should be nothing, so you won't be discovered very easily." Said Jiraiya

„How I can do that? Sensei never mentioned it." Asked Naruto, while they walked towards one of training grounds inside of compound

„Because it's skill vigorously guarded by ANBU and spies. If you know how, you can sneak unnoticed wherever you want. Since you have perfect chakra control learning it will be rather easy. Normally chakra in untrained person system is like violent storm, if you are trained in control it will be storm, but only inside your tenketsu and pathways. To hide it you need to calm it, so it's as calm as still water." Explained Jiraiya

„How can I do that?" asked Naruto, eager to learn it, so he could hide more easily during survival exercises.

„There are two things. You need to calm your chakra and second is Meisaigakure no Jutsu. Jutsu that allows users to blend with surrounding, however it won't mask your smell and sound made by your body. Also moving might cause light distortions and those might give away your position. It's sort of genjutsu, so dojutsu won't be fooled, same as good sensors. But on rest it will work." Explained Jiraiya and Naruto nodded.

„It's same jutsu as one used by ANBU to stay hidden?' asked Naruto, who saw ANBU disappearing into walls or furniture inside of Hokage office.

„Yes. Seals are as follows Dog - Hare - Snake - Rat. But it's only half of success, second thing is masking your chakra signature. You need to calm it down, so you're not picked up by every ninja in mile radius and you could safely work with ANBU."

„How I can do that?" asked Naruto, his interest piqued by such words.

„Your chakra control is really good, but now you need to learn how to suppress it without much thinking and do that subconsciously." Explained sage and Naruto nodded „Normally chakra is moving through your body without much control, when your controls over it improves and your body mature it's getting more calm and limit to pathways." Naruto once again nodded. „You need to limit it to pathways and tenketsu and flare it when you need it and want."

„So how I can train it?" asked Naruto

„Best and fastest approach is to meditate and try to block my attacks without losing concentration on meditation. When meditating your chakra is calming down and if you can achieve same control over it without meditation you will hide it almost completely." Explained Sage and waited for Naruto to start meditating before he started to attack him.

„Not bad, gaki. You're good few more weeks or months of training and you will be able to work with ANBU. For now it's good enough for simple hiding in one place. Next thing for today is fuinjutsu." Said Jiraiya and Naruto nodded. Previous few hours were hell for him, he was getting beaten and beaten by Jiraiya while trying to meditate which was hard thing to do.

„Fuinjutsu iż art of sealing you're using ink and chakra to form seals which have different properties. For example they can be used as beacons for Hiraishin or to block all senses of person or my favorite and most useful battle and trap seals." Explained Jiraiya and Naruto nodded

„Battle seals?" he asked, curious and very, very interested in them.

„You use seals to store jutsu and weapons to launch them at the enemy. They're most difficult to make and use, one mistake and it will blow up in your face. But when written correctly they're useful, you can store multiple jutsu or even Kekkei Genkai jutsu inside of them. But last require fine understanding of chakra ratios necessary to make sub elements. But now we will start with basics, that is all basic components of seals and calligraphy." Said Jiraiya and Naruto pouted. „What's the point of calligraphy?"

„Well, one mistake in single kanji, one wrong line or even dot and whole seal may malfunction and you don't want that to happen with Hakke Fuin Shiki or Fuja Hoin. Or for that matter with any seal that is related to sealing curse or bijuu, same as most of battle or trap ones. So for next few hours we are going to work on your calligraphy." Said Jiraiya and Naruto nodded, minutes turned into hours and hours turned into days. Next seven days were hell for Naruto, Jiraiya decided to stay in Senju compound and his training regime was way harder than Yamato one, he was dropping dead at the end of day and his whole body was aching like hell. But finally after seven days of torture, it was time to go and search for Tsunade.

„Team Kakashi I have a mission for you, it's S-rank. You're ordered to accompany my student Jiraiya on his search of Tsunade and bring her home. He will meet you in thirty minutes at the North Gate." Said Hokage and team nodded. Naruto simply disappear and appeared inside tree near North gate and wondered if someone would spot him. There was good chance that none will do that.

In thirty minutes Kakashi, Sasuke and Hinata were looking around for their teammate and Jiraiya, who was seen walking from inside of the village.

„Did any of you see Naruto?" asked Kakashi

„He is here. You need to find him, I decided to test your tracking skills with this simple exercise. You can only use chakra sensing abilities and Kakashi is banned from participating, because he knows how to search for such source." Said Jiraiya and Hinata and Sasuke started looking around with their dojutsu active.

„I found something in the tree, but his chakra is too weak to be Naruto. It looks almost like civilian." Said Hinata after a moment

„That's Naruto, he is suppressing his chakra." Said Jiraiya „Naruto get down, we need to get going."

„So Jiraiya-sama any idea where we need to search?" asked Kakashi, once Naruto dropped onto ground.

„Any big gambling city or place with sake festival. She is gambler and drunk, but her luck is so bad. That whenever she wins something bad is going to happen. Last such thing happened twelve years ago on October 10th." Explained Jiraiya

„October 10th sounds familiar." Said Sasuke

„Because Kyubi attacked on that day. Previous day when she won something was when Nidaime-sama got killed." Said Jiraiya and when he mentioned it, through everybody spine went shiver of fear

„Since you're genin, we will use this trip to train. Naruto try to hide during running through treetops and Sasuke and Hinata you need to find him." Said Kakashi and his genin nodded. Naruto disappeared into treetops, while Hinata and Sasuke tried to find him.

„They remind me Minato team. Hinata as Rin, Naruto as you and Sasuke as Obito, or other way around." Said casually Jiraiya and Kakashi nodded. Those teams were really similar.

„I would say Naruto is Obito and Sasuke is me." Said jonin and Sannin nodded, while they were walking.

„First our stop will be Tanzaku Gai, it's last known place where she was, but there are reports of Orochimaru in the area. And if we will be forced to fight, take Hinata and Sasuke out of fight and let me, Tsunade and Naruto deal with Orochimaru." Said Jiraiya

„But he is just a genin." Tried to protest Kakashi and Jiraiya just snorted „He has as much chakra as Kage and rather impressive arsenal of jutsu. He can summon battle Toads, so he will do fine. Besides if it will get out of control he can use Mokuryu and create dragon for himself."

„I see your point." Managed to say Kakashi, under the gaze of elder sage. It was evening when they left the forest and appeared at the outskirts of Tanzaku Gai. It was large city with small castle built in middle of it.

„Kakashi find our some rooms in one of hotels. I will go with Naruto to look for her, he is sensor so he has best chance of all of us in finding her." Said Sage and everybody nodded. Sasuke, Hinata and Kakashi walked towards one of hotels, while Naruto and Jiraiya walked towards center of the townhouse. „Look for someone who is hiding and has perfect control of his chakra."

„I have two sources with near perfect control in one of casinos and one source with perfect and one with good in hotel in northern part of town." Said Naruto and Jiraiya thought for a moment.

„How much chakra do they have?" he asked after a while

„One with good Kage level, one with perfect middle jonin." Replied blonde

„Orochimaru and Kabuto. We need to hurry, I don't want to fight him here." Said Jiraiya and Naruto nodded, they started walking towards casino where was Tsunade, who was drinking heavily. When she spotted them her eyes widened and she blinked few times, just to be sure she was seeing Jiraiya and chibi Yondaime/Nidaime.

„What do you want Jiraiya?" she growled, while looking at him.

„Sensei wants you back in Konoha." Said Jiraiya and was forced to duck under flying sake bottle.

„Nice aim Baa-chan." Said Naruto and on Tsunade forehead appeared tick mark and towards Naruto was hurled whole table with sake bottles, cups, poker chips, everything on it. Naruto punched it and sent it back, or what was left of it towards Tsunade. Who jumped out of the way, but people that were behind her weren't that lucky and got showered in splinters and other things.

„Maybe we should talk in more civilized way?" quietly suggested Jiraiya and Tsunade nodded. „Than I know great place for such talk."

Twenty minutes later they were safely seated around table in hotel where Kakashi got them rooms, even genin were allowed to sit there, but they stayed away from Tsunade. Especially after they remembered that she had same inhuman strength as Naruto.

„So sensei wants me, because Senju clan seat on council opened?" she asked „And offers spot as head of hospital and medical corps?"

„Yes. Plus that you will help with his heir training." Said Jiraiya and Tsunade eyes widened, when she heard those words.

„Who is his heir?" she warily asked, knowing what council could do.

„He is sitting with us." Crypticaly said Jiraiya and Tsunade looked over every single ninja, looking for subtle signs saying that they were used to giving orders and had this subtle aura of danger surrounding them. There were only three such people Hatake Kakashi, Jiraiya and surprisingly Naruto. Who looked like weird mix between Nidaime and Yondaime Hokage, he was young but his chakra felt powerful and dense. Only Jiraiya and sensei had chakra similar to his, rest looked like flowers compared to his, which looked like powerful and fully grown tree. Kakashi had almost equally powerful one, but his was drained by his Sharingan and looked like good sized tree.

„It's either Naruto, you or Kakashi. Rest is just too weak. Also Naruto chakra feels really, really familiar." Said Tsunade

„It's Naruto and his chakra is so familiar, because of his Kekkei Genkai. Somehow through weird mutation or not, he awakened Mokuton. But it kind of make sense it was passed from your grandfather, but it just needed time to stabilize and three generations were enough. He also inherited Tobirama Suiton ability." Said Jiraiya and Tsunade eyes widened

„I won't believe until I see it." Replied Tsunade and was shocked when suddenly ball made out of water formed in Naruto palm and there was no visible source to it. „Okay, that's enough." She replied, a little stunned by such thing.

„So tomorrow we are returning to Konoha or you want to beat Orochimaru before it?" asked Jiraiya

„How do you know that he is here?" asked Tsunade „Oh, Naruto is sensor." She said and received nod in response.

„Orochimaru? Isn't he a traitor." Asked Sasuke

„He is. I'm in no mood for talking with him. So we will quickly move out of this town and hopefully miss him." Tsunade said and rest nodded „If not I guess we will have another summons battle. Question is who has summoning contracts and which ones."

„I have Dog one, but it's mostly tracker. So it will be useless." Said Kakashi and Tsunade nodded

„I have Monkey and Toad one." Said Naruto and people reactions were different. Jiraiya simply nodded, Tsunade fell from her chair, Kakashi muttered „Kai" just making sure he wasn't under influence of genjutsu. Hinata eyes widened and Sasuke blinked.

„Monkey one? What did you do to sensei so he gave you this contract, which was given to him by my grandfather." Asked Tsunade, once she overcame her shock.

„Nothing, I just suggested it and he agreed." Said Naruto

„But why do you need Toad one?" asked Kakashi

„Because Toads have key to seal keeping Kyubi and they're battle summons. Big and nasty." Said Naruto and Jiraiya nodded in confirmation.

„Also his father was Toad summoner, so it was natural for Naruto to be summoner as well. If needed he can summon battle Toads, so we shouldn't have issues with fighting Orochimaru." Added Jiraiya, they finished their dinner and left for bed. They were going to left at the first dawn. They didn't want to meet any unwanted people, such as Orochimaru who was in the area and fight with him could completely destroy landscape. And nobody wanted to explain to Fire Daimyo why one of his towns was turned into half destroyed ruin.

„I may take new apprentice." Said Tsunade, when they were walking out of town. „And I think I found perfect person, don't you think Shizune that Hinata would do great as medic?" she asked, while looking at her friend and assistant.

„Yes. Hyuuga chakra control and anatomy knowledge are great foundations for medic." Said Shizune and Tsunade nodded in agreement. She always wanted to teach Hyuuga, but she never had opportunity to do that.

„But for that we need to get to Konoha and it will take us some time to get there." Cheerfully said Jiraiya.

„And first thing I need to do is beat sensei for what he did." Added Tsunade, while cracking her knuckles.

„What did he do?" asked Kakashi.

„He never ever sent a message with information about Naru-chan." Said Tsunade in angry voice and leaking some killing intent

„Naru-chan?" snickered Sasuke and received fist to the face and was sent into trees to the left of road.

„Anybody has any questions?" asked Naruto with sweet smile on his face and image of Shinigami behind him. Kakashi gulped when he saw it, it reminded him too much of furious Kushina-sensei, especially when someone got close to her ramen or called her Tomato. Jiraiya took few steps backwards, he saw similar smile on Tsunade face when she was ready to beat someone and Naruto looked like he was going to kill someone. Slug Princess nodded approvingly while Shizune ran after Sasuke, who crashed somewhere in trees and propably had broken bone or two.

„It's not that bad, only twelve broken bones." Said Shizune, once she emerged from forest with Sasuke.

„Only? Twelve? Broken? Bones?" asked Kakashi

„Yes. Last such punch ended for me with over twenty six broken and concussion, not to mention sensei had new window in his office." Said Jiraiya, remembering too painfully one of team briefings after mission.

„Before we kill each other we better be in Konoha. I'm in no mood for patching wounds." Said Tsunade and everybody quickly nodded and quickened their pace. When they entered the gates of Konoha it was already a late evening of the day and everybody wanted nothing more that good night sleep and rest.

„You can go I will handle sensei." Said Tsunade and dragged Jiraiya with herself and Shizune to Hokage tower, while team 7 stood there watching what was happening in front of them with mild interest.

„Meet me on our training ground in two days. We need to up your training chunin exams are in six months and I want to prepare you for them. I think you will have a chance to pass them, especially with upped training. In two weeks time we will leave for two months long training trip." Said cheerfully Kakashi and his team nodded. Sasuke went to his compound, same as Hinata, but Naruto veered off towards Inuzuka compound. On way to which he ran into team eight, which was missing a member.

„Where is Sakura?" he asked, once he saw Shino and Kiba. „I've been out of the village for last month and half."

„So you didn't hear fresh news that she is in T&I and is waiting for mental examination?" asked him Kiba

„No. I was in Kirigakure and today we got back from tracking down Tsunade." Said Naruto

„What? You were in Kirigakure and on mission to get one of Sannin to the village?" asked him Kiba

„Yep. I will tell you more once I see Tsume." Said Naruto and kept walking towards Inuzuka compound where he met Tsume and her canine companion. Who liked him and tried to get his attention, which was a little surprising for him, he never expected such thing. Not from Inuzuka ninken, which were wary of strangers. But it may like him, because of time spent by him in this compound.

„Where have you been for past month?" asked him Tsume, once she saw him.

„Doing S-rank missions and searching Sannin." Said Naruto and Kiba mouth was wide open when he heard phrase 'S-rank mission'

„S-rank missions? At this age?" asked Tsume

„First was normal C-rank that was upgraded, second was more of tracking and doing nothing. Also I signed summoning contract or two." Explained Naruto and Tsume nodded, but her eyes focused on Naruto when he mentioned summoning.

„Toads?" she asked remembering what Minato used to summon

„And Monkeys. But that's besides the point." He said and looked at Tsume, while petting Kuromaru. „Is there any chance that you could give me same ninken as Hana has?" he quietly asked

„I would need to discuss it with clan council and it would be no sooner than after chunin exams." Said Tsume very carefully and with narrowed eyes. „Why do you want to have ninken?"

„Because they're great companions and are useful as trackers." Replied Naruto and she nodded.

„As I said no sooner than after chunin exam and your performance during it will be crucial, at best your chances are slim." She said and he nodded, and left.

Meanwhile in Hokage office Sandaime Hokage was trying to survive wrath of his student.

„Why did you never told me that Minato had son!? I would return to Konoha!" shouted Tsunade and tried to beat Hokage into bloody pulp. „Why!?"

„We couldn't risk revealing his heritage! We were too weak and if you would appear to take care of him assasins would swarm on us." Weakly said Hokage, shocked by Tsunade fury.

„What! You're dead sensei!" she shouted before grabbing his desk and hurling it at him. He barely dodged it and Hokage office had new window to it and people walking on the street below it, were forced to dodge falling debris and this heavy piece of furniture.

„Calm down Tsunade-hime." Said Jiraiya „I'm furious too, but killing him isn't the best idea." Begging said Jiraiya and unfortunately for him, he was used as next thing to throw by Tsunade and screaming was thrown out of window breaking it and demolishing part of wall around it and landed inside woman hot spring. Where he received another serious beating.

„Ah yes, where we were. Care to give me one good reason, why you didn't inform me about Minato-kun child?" hissed Tsunade, while rolling up her sleeves and walking towards her sensei.

„As I said we were too weak and we couldn't reveal his heritage. But I also forgot about it." Said Sandaime Hokage and paled when he saw evil glint in Tsunade eyes, one that signaled her readiness to beat someone.

„But! You! Had! Time! To! Reveal! His! Status! As! Kyubi! Jinchuuriki!" she shouted destroying another wall and throwing debris towards her sensei who managed to dodge it. Soon followed by her monstrous punches, that turned most of office into battlefield and area around it didn't look to good. Some genins would have a lot of D-rank missions in next few weeks. And she didn't even visit hospital and discover how bad it was there and that would cause another tantrum of her and half of it would get demolished.

„What's going on?" weakly asked Hinata, when she walked out of her bedroom and heard shouts and sounds of crashing roofs.

„You were on mission to bring back Tsunade-sama?" asked her father and patriarch of Hyuuga clan.

„Yes, I was Tou-san." She replied and slightly bowed.

„Than that's famous Tsunade-sensei temper." Replied chuckling Hiashi and watched area with active Byakugan, trying to find her chakra. „Some poor genins will have a lot of D-rank construction missions. Half of Hokage office is destroyed."

„She was your sensei?" asked Hinata

„Yes. I was on her team with Uchiha Fugaku and Nara Yoshino." Said Hiashi, remembering good and old times. „You're on team with Senju Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke?"

„Hai"

„It will be interesting team. Can you invite Naruto to our compound? I have some scrolls given to me by Kushina-chan that should belong to him." Said Hiashi and Hinata nodded.

Night was long for most of Konoha citizens and after it Hokage tower was a lot shorter, it lost something like story in height and area around it was full of ruble, but somehow Hokage managed to calm down Tsunade, but even than she beat him to inch of his life and left the building destroying everything in her path and waking up most of Konoha inhabitants.

Two days later team 7 was waiting for their sensei on their usual training ground, team mechanics since last missions improved and it was safe to say that they were friends. Especially since fateful mission to Mizu no Kuni, when they were forced to save each other and similar experience can form strong bonds between people.

„Yo! Today is a little special, because of chunin exams that are in six months during next twelve days you will take part in survival exercise along with every other genin team from Konoha. You will be graded for your performance by proctors and after it there will be chosen sixteen teams that will take part in chunin exam. Today we will do light training in preparation for this exercise." Announced Kakashi

„Do you know where will take place this exercise?" asked Naruto

„Training area sixty nine. It's one of ANBU training ground, almost whole is covered in trees and there are couple of streams and lakes. It's twenty by twenty kilometers area and there will be placed caches with supplies around it for you to use. Content of them will be randomized, you may find couple sets of kunai, shuriken and ninja wire or some food or medical supplies. Maiming or killing is allowed, but you can do that only as last resort. Other important thing is that until start of exercise you may form alliances with whatever team you want." Explained Kakashi

„What about training?" asked Sasuke

„It will be mostly how to hide your chakra and how to mask your presence. It will be extremely useful for you, after that couple of simple genjutsu for your Sharingan and how to use them in fight. Last but not least how to move in such area when under fire." Said Kakashi and his students nodded. There was almost no chance for them to master those abilities, maybe excluding Sharingan genjutsu, but even good understanding of them would help them immensely. Masking chakra and your presence in the area was skill rarely taught outside of ANBU and learning it as genin would help them a lot. When you couldn't feel someone chakra it made you very nervous and uncomfortable, during fights it was crucial, many people got killed because they lost peace of mind during fight. Also moving under fire was thing that could be learned only from shinobi that took part in actual war and Team Kakashi was lucky, because their sensei fought in last war.

After few hours of training they were tired, but it wasn't as hard as usual. It mostly tired their minds, because they were forced to learn new things, a lot of them as a matter of fact in very short time frame. Usually in ANBU they were covered in parts, but Kakashi didn't have luxury of too much time, so he squeezed as much as possible in as small time frame as possible.

„Any idea with which teams we should make alliances?" asked Naruto, after they were done with training

„Team 9 and 10?" suggested Sasuke

„Yes. I like your idea. Neji-nii is one of best Juuken fighters and rest of his team is alright. About 10 they're alright team, they're not bad and have interesting abilities." Said Hinata and Naruto nodded. „What about team 8?"

„No, never. I don't trust Sakura." Said Naruto „And she is a fangirl of gigantic proportions."

„So Hinata you talk with nine and I think that Naruto will talk with ten. In meantime I will get all necessary supplies for our group. Tell them to meet us in Senju compound in hour time." Said Sasuke and Naruto and Hinata nodded.

„I like it." Said Naruto and disappeared, followed by Hinata and Sasuke

„Hey guys" Said Naruto, once he appeared on training ground used by team ten. „Are you taking part in tomorrow exercise?"

„Yes. It's troublesome, but we are doing that." Said Shikamaru and rest nodded.

„What you would say about making it less troublesome?" asked Naruto and once he had their interest he added. „I'm talking about alliance, with you and Team 9."

„I like it, but what about team 8?" asked Ino

„Never. I'm not going to trust Sakura in long time." Replied Naruto and people blinked few times. Naruto not trusting Sakura?

„What happened?" asked Shikamaru

„Her mother sent three nuke-nin after me and before that Sakura tried to murder me during training." Said Naruto and Team 10 members were surprised. They never expected her to be so bad, everybody knew she didn't like Naruto, but that was just awful.

„I see." Said Shikamaru and looked at Chouji and Ino who nodded. „We will be there."

„Good. Meet us at Senju compound in hour time." Said Naruto and disappeared

„9 is coming" Said Hinata once they were in Senju compound, where Naruto was training with Tsunade how to use Chakura no Mesu in fight, they were deadly if used properly. But they had also more mundane usage, that is during surgeries. When they were used to cut tissues around wound or place where iryonin wanted to get. However during fights they were mainly used to cut tendons and muscles to limit movements of enemy.

„10 is also coming." Said Naruto, while dodging scalpel that passed way to close to his face. „They should be any moment here."

„Than I think it's enough for today. You're good, but you need to work some more on them. You need experience in usage of them, you have control to use them, but not enough experience and any half decent medic would cut you into pieces without much troubles. But for this exercise it will be enough." Said Tsunade and Naruto nodded and walked to see if teams were coming.

Twenty minutes later teams 9 and 10 were inside and ready to talk.

„Senseis told us it's in the forested area, which for me is huge advantage." Said Naruto, while unrolling map of forests surrounding Konoha with marked training grounds.

„You don't mean Mokuton?" asked Shikamaru

„Yes, I mean that." Replied Naruto

„If you're good with it, it will be easy. We will use your abilities to build some sort of hideout and we will use it as base of operations. We have what two Hyuuga, Uchiha, two civilians, Senju, Nara, Yamanaka and Akimichi. Which is pretty decent set. Question is about Sasuke. If he unlocked his Sharingan and how good are you Naruto with your Mokuton." Said Shikamaru, while thinking deeply and analyzing map and their strategy.

„I have Sharingan and Kakashi-sensei showed me some genjutsu that can be used with it." Said Sasuke, who was polishing his sword.

„What about you Naruto?" asked Shikamaru

„Rather good. I can do almost every Mokuton jutsu, even strongest ones, but they will leave me exhausted." Said our favorite blonde „I have a way around it, but it's in emergency only." At the word emergency Hinata and Sasuke exchanged knowing look, usage of Kyubi chakra.

„Good. In terms of close range we are pretty good. Hinata, Neji, Lee and Chouji. Middle it will be Sasuke and you Naruto, while support and long range will be me, Tenten and Ino." Explained Shikamaru and mentioned people nodded. „Pack for month of combat, we don't know what to expect inside. Gates will be assigned on first to go, first to get. Which is good for us, because we will be able to hopefully get single gate."

„Okay." Murmured everybody and left to pack. Naruto decided to wear his plate armor with us many additional plates as possible, on top of that first aid kit, pouch with poisons and senbon, usual weapons and few storage scrolls with energy batons and drinks to eat if needed. Almost everybody put on themselves as much supplies as possible and practical, they also had as much weapons as possible. Chance to resupply inside would be slim, unless they manage to get lucky with supply caches.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N – Sorry for that little delay, but I didn't have an idea how to write this chapter so it took me some time to do that. It's a little shorter and there is cliff hanger for you at the end of it.**

On the next day in front of thefence guarding training ground sixty nine were gathered all genin from Konohagakure no Sato. It was the time to see who was worthy enough to be allowed to participate in chunin exams. It was huge group, over three hundred teams which is equal to nine hundred genin, every single one of them hoping to pass it and be allowed to qualify for chunin exams. Some of them were as young as 12 and some as old as 18. There were over hundred gates leading inside, but teams that had best missions results were allowed to choose gate and teams that were with them passing selected gate. It was choice given only to top twenty teams, to give them some sort of reward for their performance, rest was allocated randomly.

In this system D-rank was worth 5 points, C-rank was worth 20 points, B-rank was worth 50 points, A-rank was worth 100 and finally S-rank was worth 500 points. For example Team Kakashi completed two S-rank missions, five C-rank and twenty D-rank. Which gave them total one thousand and two hundred point. For two S-rank missions thousand points, for five C-rank hundred and for twenty D-rank hundred.

„Team Kakashi, Hana, Gai, Asuma please report to desk number ten!" chunin shouted and teams nodded, started moving through crowd and pushing aside other people that were in their way. It was extremely crowded as everybody tried to be closed to the gates and had a chance to get a decent gate.

„Team Kakashi you have one thousand and two hundred points. Which means that you're classified as number three in team ranking and you're allowed to choose gate and up to three teams to be at the said gate with you." Said one of administrative chunin and showed them map with marked entry ways and supply caches. They were placed with exactly the same intervals placed between one and another, so that there would be no unfair advantage.

„We want teams Asuma and Gai to pass with us." Said Sasuke and noticed look of hatred and irritation from Sakura, who still hoped to be with 'her Sasuke-kun'. Who was ignoring her completely, if she wanted to be noticed she should stop being fangirl. Her behavior wasn't liked by other genins, even from her own team and they seemed to be at least cold towards her, not to mention that this feeling was kind of mutual, as she treated them in same way.

„Of course. Now you need to choose gate." Replied chunin and marked those three teams on his scroll as ones that were choosing one gate.

„Shika come here." Said Naruto and mentioned Nara moved to the front of their group. „Which gate will be best for us?"

„I would say gate number five. It's in the area with deep caves and few supply caches, also objectives for teams passing it are relatively easy. Not to mention there are several streams and lakes in the area which solve any issues with access to fresh water." Said mentioned Nara as he looked at the map, searching for any disadvantages and advantages of each and every gate, so that he could choose the best one.

„So we will take gate number five." Said Naruto and chunin nodded, marked it as taken and gave them scrolls with objectives, map and basic kits that were given to every participant.

„Good luck. We will start in thirty minutes. You can open those scrolls when you're inside." He said, they nodded in thanks and left to their gate.

It took them few minutes to get to the gate, but when they were there they saw typical gate in the fence, nothing more, only usual thing was clock at the top of it and counting time to start of the exercise. Other genin looked around when Naruto started suppressing his chakra to the point of it being impossible to detect, he was soon followed by Sasuke who saw what he did with his Sharingan. He learned from Kakashi-sensei how to do that, but here he was able to completely suppress it, mainly by watching what his team-mate was doing and copying it.

„What are you doing?" asked Ino, when she felt that Sasuke and Naruto chakra stopped being present. It freaked her out a little, as she felt uncomfortable when she couldn't find their chakra. Every ninja was emitting at least miniscule amounts of chakra and not doing that at all was a rare thing.

„We're hiding our presence, so we will be able to move undetected." Explained Naruto and Shikamaru eyes narrowed when he heard that.

„Than I have perfect movement formation. Since those two can't be detected by other ninja, because of their suppressed chakra. We will use that to our advantage. We will move in rectangle with three probes. At the front will be Neji, who is experienced and has Byakugan, at the right flank will be Naruto, at the left Sasuke. Rest will move in one and small group." Said Shikamaru and everybody nodded. Than he looked at Naruto with narrowed eyes. „Where did you learn how to do that?"

„Godfather is spy master of Konoha and he showed me. Also I was training with few ANBU for some time and I picked up few useful things when doing that." Said Naruto and people mouths were wide open.

„Your godfather?" asked Hinata

„Member of Densetsu no Sannin. Toad Sage Jiraiya." Explained Naruto. „We can talk later. Timer is almost up." He added glancing at the timer, which was almost at zero. Only few seconds were left.

„Neji, Hinata look for caves and supply caches, there should be plenty of them in this area." Ordered Shikamaru, once they were inside. It was deep and dark forest, but compared to Forest of Death it was nothing. Naruto actually felt better inside, he was in his element and he was able to use it to its full capacity.

„You're almost like your father when he is fighting." Said chuckling Naruto.

„How do you know that?" asked Shikamaru, a little surprised by that remark.

„Gokage meeting, we were forced to fight some bandits on our way there." Explained Naruto and was forced to dodge hail of kunai and shuriken. „Looks like someone found us already. What should I do with them? Kill or knock out?" he asked looking at the Shika.

"Knock out." Said Shikamaru and Naruto nodded. He jumped towards that team, not even bothering to take out one of his swords. They would be useless here, he instead used pure taijustu, jumped towards first one and knocked him out by powerful blow to the back of his head, so strong that it jerked it forward. Second one received knee to his crotch, causing all male members of Naruto group to wince, hits there weren't pleasant and were painful.

For that one it was so painful that he landed on the ground and laid there, not even moving at all. Last one got kicked in her chest and was sent against the tree that was behind her with a mute thud. Naruto dusted off his clothes and walked to the group, who looked at him in wonder. Like they couldn't believe how strong he was, only Hinata and Sasuke were used to his strength as they were on couple of missions together and trained a lot, so him throwing people around wasn't a surprise.

"Who are you Naruto?" Asked Ino

"Officially genin, in truth somewhere around jonin. Also I'm being prepared by Jiji to be his successor for the Hokage seat." Explained Naruto and looked around, trying to feel the forest. His Mokuton chakra allowed him to sense the energy of trees and see where what was, it was a little taxing on his body, but properly used it could be dangerous and give him forewarning that enemy was incoming. He was looking for caves or other ravines that could be their hideout during this exam, he was considering it as a waste of time that could be spent on training, but someone thought it was a good idea.

"I found a cave and something that looks like supply cache three hundred to the north." Suddenly said Neji and rest of group nodded. They jumped onto the branches and ran towards their target, hoping to get there quickly and without any troubles. One team of competitors was enough of troubles for them and they didn't want to smash through the middle of any other team.

"One team is out." Said one of sensors, when they felt three shinobi getting knocked out, rather painfully, along with those hits there were waves of chakra generated, which meant powerful taijustu attacks were used to deal with them.

"Which one?" asked Mitarashi Anko, who had questionable pleasure of overseeing it.

"Team Fifteen, they ran across Teams Seven, Nine and Ten." Said sensor and Anko nodded.

"I told them to look at their opponents, yet they attacked the strongest group of teams in the area." Said their sensei, trying not to cry.

"What do you mean by the strongest group of teams?" Asked one of jonin that were in the room, receiving a lot of weird looks from other people.

"Asuma are you going to tell them or should I do that?" Said Kakashi, glancing at that jonin and looking at the sensing sphere. He was sitting with Asuma and Gai in one corner, discussing their teams.

"Honors are yours, after all you have one that propably knocked them out." Shrugged off Asuma

"Fine" Said Kakashi and looked at that jonin "He means by that who is in those teams. Senju Naruto is after all current Heir of Sandaime-sama and rest of my team isn't far behind. Last loyal Uchiha and Heiress of Hyuuga clan. Other two teams aren't that bad either, new generation of Ino-Shika-Cho and Juuken prodigy." When he said those words, eyes of couple of jonins widened in shock and some sort of fear when they realized what kind of danger was lurking in those forests.

Whole group landed in front of large tree where on one of branches was hanging supply pouch and by the looks of it, it was quite heavy and full of supplies. Tenten threw her kunai in direction of it and it fall onto the ground with a lot of noise, along with sound of moving metal. She picked it up and opened, inside was quite a lot of things and most of them were rather useful ones too.

"We are lucky." She said, rummaging through those things and placing them onto the ground in front of her. "Ten spools of ninja wires, three scrolls full of kunai and shuriken, some medical supplies and energy bars."

"I can take some medical supplies." Said Ino picking them up and hiding them in her own supply pouch.

"I have plenty of weapons." Said Naruto, who was looking more line a walking arsenal than a human. On his back were two swords of his mother in their scabbards in X-pattern, there was also equipment pouch with few storage scrolls, each holding some kunai, shuriken or Fuma shuriken, three of which were folded on Naruto back. To his right lap was strapped double kunai holsters and on his left leg there were few scrolls, mostly storage ones, but there was also one with seals that could be used during combat.

"You look more like a walking storage than a shinobi." Said Sasuke and grabbed one of scrolls with shuriken and some of ninja wire. They were rather useful for him as Uchiha style of war relied on shuriken and Katon jutsu, not to mention Sharingan.

"True" Agreed Naruto and suddenly his eyes widened, enemy was close and was approaching them rapidly, assuming his senses were as good as they usually were. "Neji where is that cave you had found?"

"Ten to fifteen meters to the east from where we are." Said older Hyuuga, as his Byakugan went active "Also there is that squad coming from west, we can avoid them if we hurry up and get to that cave as quickly as possible."

"Ten to fifteen meters to the east." Softly repeated Naruto, as he kneeled on the ground and pressed his palm against it. Sending chakra in every direction, but mainly to the east and towards trees there. "I have it, actually it's placed in rather nice place."

"What do you mean by that?" Asked Shikamaru, not understanding what Naruto meant by those words.

"Extremely hard to spot and easy to defend." Explained Naruto as they were leaping from tree to tree, hurrying before teams that were in the area would get to them before ether were able to hide. "Here it is" They landed around small hole in the ground, around which were coiled roots of trees and it looked like they were protecting it.

"Nice" Said Shikamaru looking at it "Easy to defend, my ass. It's almost impossible to find and one can defend it."

"We better get inside before anybody spot us." Said Neji looking around, veins around his eyes bulged out. Sign that he had his Kekkei Genkai being active. "Some teams are rather close to us."

They nodded and one by one they slipped inside, when one of them got inside they could see just some hostile team passing just above the hole and not noticing it or people that were entering it. When they entered it, they looked curiously around it, assessing what they had available to them, it was a long cave and guessing by the sounds they were hearing there was also a second entrance to it, one through which stream was leaving it. It looked quite good and would be enough to be of use for them for the time being as they needed something safe and dry to sleep, not to mention place they could use as a base for their operations inside of the forest.

Shikamaru opened scrolls with their mission details and frowned looking at them, they weren't particularly challenging. They were only annoying and would take some time to do, but they had plenty of time, so that wasn't an issue.

"We have annoying objectives." He said after a while "In one we need to find four pieces of map and thing that will be revealed by them. Second one is to find three caches with symbols of clans and they are hidden somewhere in the trees in eastern part of this forest. Last is to infiltrate the building, enter unseen, remove what is kept there and get it to drop point."

"That's a poor excuse of joke." Said Naruto "I expected something more challenging."

"Well" Said Shikamaru looking at Naruto "They want us to survive this, so too hard and many will fail. But going back to tasks, infiltration should be done by Naruto and Sasuke as they are the best with that. Next tracking those things is annoying and will take much time, so I suggest we get infiltration first out of the way."

"Night will be the best." Said Naruto and glanced upwards, trying to guess the time. "We will be mostly unseen and it will be easier to sneak around. In the meantime I would place traps all around our position."

"Sound suggestion." Said Shikamaru "Sasuke, you, Tenten and Hinata would trap the area, while Neji will stand guard?"

"Can be done." Said Sasuke, taking out small scroll with his trapping supplies, some of them were his and Naruto creations, while rest was made by various clan members.

Their small group got onto the surface, supplies in hand and looked around for places that were the best for placing traps that would give the best results and would be effective. Trap making was an art and hard to learn one too, unless someone had natural talent to it or trained a lot, he was not going to make good traps.

Here they were using their skills to their fullest, trapping places where not many would expect them to be placed. They weren't deadly, but were mostly designed to be annoying for ones to caught in them, to cause some damage, but not to maim or kill them. Mostly they were snare traps or one with senbon launchers that were spitting out senbon covered in weak paralysis agent, mostly it would cause pain and temporary paralysis of person hit by them.

"How teams are doing?" Asked Anko looking at sensors and other ninja in command center. It was getting late and they were preparing for a long and slow night as not many would fight in the middle of night in total darkness.

"All teams found their hideouts and read their objectives. So far four are out." Said one of sensors "Propably six or so are going to be thrown out."

"It looks boring." Said Anko and looked at ones that were grading team performance based on footage from cameras. "How it is going?"

"Twenty teams are going to pass for sure." Said one of them "Sixteen are almost sure to fail it. I would say we need only three or four days to weed out weak teams and leave only ones ready to qualify for chunin exams."

"It's going better than planned." Said Anko "When we are going to hit exactly forty teams, send oinin and ANBU to get the rest of teams. There is no point in extending it for more than it is needed.

"Hai" Said one of those jonin and returned to watching footage provided by cameras placed all around the forest. Some of them were placed in rather weird places and many wondered how they got there as they seemed to be in places impossible to reach.

Two people were sneaking through the forest, their footsteps as quiet as possible and their chakra as subdued as possible. They tried to be two ghost as they were jumping from tree to tree on their way to their target, which was large building that was in the middle of the forest. Their objective was to enter it unseen and unheard, take something out of it and get it to drop point as quickly as possible.

Those two were Uchiha Sasuke and Senju Naruto, only sign that they were there was slight rustling of leaves and sound of snapped twig that happened from time to time. But other than that there was no sign of them being there, after all they were shinobi of Konohagakure and ones trained by Sharingan no Kakashi, one of the best jonin in whole Konoha.

"There is small camp, ten meters to our right, two teams, six people and ninken." Quietly said Naruto, looking at Sasuke "We should be able to dodge it rather easily."

"Lead the way." Said Sasuke and looked at Naruto, whose eyes were glowing green, sign of him using his sensor abilities, which were further reinforced by place where he was and his usage of Mokuton chakra.

"Give me a moment." Said Naruto as he landed on the ground and looked around. His night vision was good, but not that good as Sasuke who was supported by Sharingan. "Can you see if there are any traps or genjutsu? Your Sharingan can actually see at night."

Sasuke nodded, his eyes morphed into red and black of Sharingan and he looked around, trying to find anything out of place or order. As those were usual signs of genjutsu or traps placed there. "Genjutsu! Kai!" he whispered and watched landscape around him, where nothing at all seemed to change. "There is nothing hidden." He said once he glanced at Naruto who nodded.

"Good" Nodded Naruto and jumped onto the branch of near tree. "Other than that there are no teams, till we hit the building which is kept behind a barrier, which prevents me from sensing it and inside of it."

"It will be fun." Said cheerfully Sasuke "I always liked surprises."

"There are also bad ones." Said Naruto "I had one when training preparing ambush with ANBU. I assumed there were four and there were in fact six or them. It didn't end too well, I mean I knocked them out, but one almost got away and that's not a good thing with ambush."

"I meant good one." Said Sasuke and looked at Naruto who slowly nodded. Forest around them was quiet and almost everybody was sleeping, excluding some shinobi that were standing on guard or decided to hunt at night. Natural inhabitants of it were getting awake and started their hurting, as they were running they could see couple of owls and other predators in the area. It was usually a good sign as predators were extremely sensitive to even minor disturbances and would left the area if they felt enemies or something that was disrupting natural order of things.

Yet when they landed on a branch few meters from the edge of compound they were supposed to enter it was completely quiet. Like there was nothing at all that could emit any sound which was rather frightening and scary as it generally meant troubles and danger. Things that nobody liked.

"It's too quiet." Said Sasuke, his Sharingan blazing and looking for any troubles and enemies. He looked at that compound and it shimmered under his gaze, genjutsu placed on it dropped and he was able to see what was truly there. When they dropped, he saw twelve shinobi walking around the main building and scanning the area of it for any threats, there were also four more on the roofs and two just outside of those walls. "There is a lot of them, eighteen shinobi."

"It will be troublesome as Nara like to say." Said Naruto and gazed downwards, looking at those shinobi looking for patterns and schematics in their movements, ones that could be used to get inside. "We need to eliminate those on the room and those outside of the compound as they are the biggest threat."

"Propably one or two pairs inside of the compound, I mean inside of walls." Added Sasuke and looked at Naruto who took out small canvas bag from which he took out big needles, made out of wood and with tip covered in violet substance. "What's that?"

"Senbon needles with strong paralysis agent, enough to put them to sleep for next six or so hours." Explained Naruto "Better than killing them, assuming they are real shinobi, most propably they are tough Kage Bunshin."

Sasuke nodded at that explanation and watched as Naruto carefully aimed and fired those needles hit their designed targets, they slumped forward and their muscles twitched, trying to fight poison that entered the body and was forcing it to stop working, thus putting them to long and peaceful sleep. First to went down were ones that were on the roof of building as they were going to be the most annoying and could spot them entering it, so taking them out had highest priority. When those on the on were soundly sleeping, Naruto changed his targets and looked at ones on the ground, they were so far unaware of the fact that they were close to deadly hunter.

"We better hurry, it seems not only we had such mission." Said Sasuke looking at Naruto "Team appeared on the border of forest on the other side of the compound. They are still scouting, but soon they might move."

"I see." Tsked Naruto with some annoyance. He didn't like guests when he was hunting and that was one of such situations. "I'm done. Let's go." He said few minutes later, when senbon had hit all of their designed targets, which promptly went to sleep wherever they were.

They jumped onto the ground, ran towards the wall surrounding their target, used their chakra to attach themselves to the surface of it and walked up the wall and onto it. They stood there, analizyning patterns and choosing their next spot. Sasuke lightly tilted his head to the left, passed few words using sign language, Naruto nodded to them and leaped after Sasuke towards their target.

They landed onto the roof of the compound and prayed that nobody looked upwards, as he could spot them for a moment. They stood there motionless, knowing well that the less movement was done, the smaller chance that they were spotted, so staying still for a moment almost removed a change of being seen.

When guards around the compound stopped paying them any attention, they dropped onto the ground, moving as quietly and quickly as possible as they didn't want to be spotted. Before they even dropped onto the ground they saw where was each patrol, so that they could drop into a zone not seen by any of those patrols. Once they did that, they leaped towards door leading inside, opened and them and sneaked in.

"I don't believe it." Said quietly Naruto, when they hide inside small room near the entrance. "No freaking guards inside of it."

"Guards no, but plenty of genjutsu, traps and other surprises." Said Sasuke as his Sharingan looked around the room, gazing through the walls of the room. "Almost everything is trapped and we don't really know where our prize is. We know somewhere in the middle of the building."

While genin were trying to pass preliminaries before even actual chunin exams could start in Hokage office was meeting small group of people to design whole exam. There were Hokage, Senju Tsunade, Jiraiya, Nara Shikaku and Morino Ibiki from Konoha, while from Kiri there were Ao, Kuriarare Kushimaru, Kurosuki Raiga. They were sitting around small table on which were placed maps of potential places in which they were going to be held.

"As we previously agreed." Said Ao "We will host second round, while you will host first and finals of it. But we would like to have some proctors inside of first round and few of judges in last round of it."

"It can be done." Said Ibiki "I will be chief proctor of first part of the exam and adding few more won't be a huge problem. It will be an intelligence gathering exercise, they will receive nine or nineteen questions with questions from above genin or even chunin level. There will be placed jonin between examinees to provide them with answers, all glaring obvious examples of cheating will be punished."

"Who will be creating those questions?" Asked Ao

"We will be." Said at the same time Tsunade and Jiraiya.

"That will be acceptable." Said Ao and rest of Kiri delegation nodded. "Now second part will be held on one of our training grounds, we prepared twelve options, three are easy, three are hard and six are between those extremes."

Hokage and his advisors picked up proposed training grounds and watched them with interest, choosing the one that would be the best in their opinion. They wanted a challenge for candidates, one that wouldn't kill them, but would be hard to beat.

"What about Training Field 59?" Asked Shikaku after long moment of thought.

"It will be a challenge for participants of the exam as it is usually used during our jonin exam and Sharks normally train there." Said Kushimaru "It is mix of marsh, open swathes of sea and few islands here and there. It is roughly resembling rectangle, fifty by sixty kilometers."

"I think it will be a good choice." Said Hokage after a moment of thought "I would like to have only between sixty-four and thirty-two participants once we are done with second stage. Can you arrange that?"

"It will be done." Said Ao "If there will be too much of them left by the end of fourth out of five days, we will send Sharks and oinin inside. They will knock out remaining genin and get them out of that field."

"I think that will be acceptable." Said Sarutobi Hiruzen and looked at Shikaku and Sannin "Anything to add?"

"No" Muttered Shikaku

"Than it's settled." Said Hokage "We will send invitations to other villages in three months. First stage will be here, second in Kiri and eventual preliminaries before that stage will be also there and last stage, that is finals will be here. We will split income from it between two of us, equally in the middle."

"That's the most generous offer." Said Ao, finishing writing notes on his scroll and sealing it, so that he could carry them back to Kiri. "Mizukage-sama will be most pleased with that offer."

"Shikaku will escort you to the border of Hi no Kuni." Said Hokage looking at his scarred jonin, who nodded that he understood that and didn't even mutter a thing about it being troublesome. Which was rather weird for him.

Going back to the place of exercise...


	8. Chapter 8

Naruto and Sasuke sneaked into a compound that was their target, they stood in small room which they found empty and were looking out for troubles which honestly speaking were everywhere and it looked like it was going to be annoying. There were traps and other nasty surprised placed literally everywhere and passing through corridor without disabling at least three or tripping three was almost impossible as they were placed on the floor, inside of walls and on the ceiling which made walking through the room troublesome.

When they opened doors leading onto corridor, first thing that Sasuke did was to gently pry open one of floorboards that were in front of them and when he did that he removed springing mechanism of one of those traps, so that it wasn't going to fire at them. It was one of more nasty ones, kunai and shuriken covered in strong poison and hallucinogenic concoction.

Once Sasuke did that he slowly walked out of the room, looking for any traps that could be sprang by them immediately. He noticed two more, one was cleverly hidden in the ceiling and second was similar to one that he just disarmed. It looked like they placed trap almost on top of another trap, which made disarming them hard.

"Naruto, how good is your Mokuton jutsu?" Sasuke asked Naruto, as he considered how to deal with those traps.

"Quite good, why do you ask?" Said Naruto looking around and considering their options.

"I am going to activate all of those traps and you would hide us behind some sort of shield." Sasuke explained his plan as he didn't want to spent next few hours or days, methodically disabling every single trap, especially if he could deal with them in one go.

"I should have something that will be able to do what you require from it to do." Said Naruto as he looked at that corridor with some annoyance.

"On three." Said Sasuke and took out ten shuriken, ready to launch them at those targets. "One, Two and three." He sent those shuriken at the traps in front of him and at the same time Naruto weaved through multiple handseals necessary to make a shield that would be able to protect them from those things. Naruto slammed his palms onto the floor and channeled chakra into it, in front of them appeared wall made out of wood that protected them from all of those projectiles, raising in front of them moments before first projectiles were upon them. For several minutes there was only heard sound of projectiles hitting the shield and bouncing off it or embedding into it. On the inside of it were visible several small bulges caused by bigger objects and ones that nearly pierced it.

"That was a lot of projectiles." Said Naruto, once he canceled shield and noticed how looked corridor in front of them. It was littered with projectiles of various sizes, weights and shapes. Not to mention couple of scorch marks left by weak explosive notes. In floor, walls and in the ceiling were visible holes which previously hosted various types of traps that now were revealed and were useless as all of their ammunition was used on that shield they were unable to penetrate.

"It was but I think those were all the traps that are in this corridor and are on our way to the middle of this building." Said Sasuke, few more shuriken in his hands. Just to be safe "It also might drawn those shinobi from the outside, so I would suggest hurrying, unless we want to have guards and other team on our tail."

"That team which was scouting is looking around the compound, so far they are outside of it." Said Naruto as he closed his eyes for a moment and sensed chakra. Trying to pinpoint sources of it and if possible to recognize them as well, those were the main reasons why good sensor was one of the most important shinobi in the team. "If I'm right it's Sakura, Kiba and Shino."

"So we have all the time that we may want to have." Said Sasuke as he carefully moved forward, looking for their target. So far they only found couple of empty rooms and only that, nothing else and that was getting on their nerves as they didn't want to spent whole night inside of this building.

They opened doors to the room that was placed in the middle of the building and peered inside, they found small chest placed on small raided dais in the middle of it, without any visible traps placed around it, which was rather suspicious thing as it propably meant that there was a trap triggered by change of pressure.

"It's a trap." Quietly said Sasuke "Propably this dais is covered in weak explosive notes, connected to trigger that is based on change of pressure. My clan used them mostly to protect important things and ones that couldn't fall into hands of the enemy as they were too dangerous. Disarming them was tricky as you need to either replace thing with something of exact weight or removed every single note that is under it."

"Any idea how to deal with it?" Asked Naruto, while his clones stood around the room, making sure they weren't going to be interrupted by Team Hana.

"The best way is to remove or disable every note as finding object that weights the same is almost impossible." Replied Sasuke as he moved closer to inspect the dais with his Sharingan, which was usually able to reveal quite a lot of things. When he looked for a moment at it, it shimmered and genjutsu placed there broke. There was no chest, only few words written on the stone of dais. "Looks like we don't need to disable the trap. It's a message with placement of our prize, it is that code that we were taught at the Academy."

"It isn't." Said Naruto as he moved closer and looked at those marks on stone. They seemed familiar, like he saw them somewhere and should know, yet they weren't ones that should everybody know. "It's something normal genin shouldn't know. It is code used by ANBU and this message is rather interesting."

"What is it?" Asked Sasuke

"Look for feather of raven, your prize is there." Said Naruto and frowned at the word raven as it could connect with only one person. One that he didn't fancy meeting in the middle of this exam. While he liked him, meeting with him with Sasuke close by would be a risky thing as Sasuke might try to kill him.

They looked around for few minutes until they spotted feather of raven that was stuck between two planks, Naruto pried them open and found one thing that was their target, thankfully that raven feather was just a nasty joke of one responsible for creation of this challenge. Before they left the building they placed several new traps in it and armed ones that they activated so that people that were going to visit it after them would have a nasty surprise. Once they did that, they sneaked out of the building watching for team eight and any sentries that could be outside of the building and waiting only for them to appear in their line of sight.

Once they got out of the building they were confronted by Team Eight, which also wanted to get this prize and decided to do it the easy way. That is by beating team that got the prize before them, but in this case it wasn't such an easy task as they were rather dramatically outgunned and their numerical superiority wouldn't last too long.

"Sasuke you want to deal with them?" Asked Naruto, once he blocked kunai aimed at his head. "Or should I do that?"

"I will deal with them." Said Sasuke and charged at Kiba, who was the strongest out of that team, but before poor Inuzuka could do much, he received kick to the chest and was thrown into the wall behind him. Shino was further away and was surrounded by a cocoon of kikaichu which made fighting with him annoying.

Sasuke looked at Shino and Sakura, considering his options. He decided to deal with Shino first as he was greater threat and one that could surprise him. Sasuke flashed through handseals, his chest puffed out and when he was ready he shouted " _Katon – Hosenka no Jutsu!_ " and launched several flower shaped fireballs at Shino, who was forced to dodge them and to recall all of his bugs. Sasuke used that to his advantage and charged at him, coming into taijustu range, but before he could do much he heard sound of crashing trees and walls. When he glanced behind, he saw that Sakura got thrown into the wall by Naruto or more properly by orange clawed hand that appeared out of Naruto back.

Not thinking too much about it Sasuke looked at Shino and quickly dealt enough damage to knock him out. When he did that he dust off his clothes and walked back to Naruto who looked at Sakura with venom and anger visible in his eyes, which looked rather scary and were glowing with power.

"What the hell happened to her?" Sasuke asked as he saw that she was almost punched through rather thick tree and guessing by position in which she landed, she had several broken bones, or at least fractured.

"She tried to attack me from behind." Explained Naruto "And Kyubi reacted to that by throwing her into that tree. She should be more or less fine. But we better get going, that was a lot of chakra and three quarters of people will be going here. Including proctors and ANBU."

"What the hell is that?" Shouted one of sensors when he felt spike of extremely malicious chakra, so dense and powerful that it was able to bend the shape of sensing sphere. Not to mention that it was orange in color, which was a rare color of chakra, as usually people had blueish chakra.

"Someone just made Naruto mad or tried to stab him from behind." Shrugged off Kakashi

"Send ANBU to check what happened." Ordered Anko "I have a feeling they will find half dead kunoichi."

"She should be happy to be alive." Said Kakashi looking at Anko "She tried to kill him I believe at least once before and didn't show him any respect, not to mention those nukenin. So far his replies were controlled."

"That unless kunoichi." Spat Hana "I told her not to attack him as she doesn't have a chance, yet she did that. Is she that stupid?"

"Apparently she is." Said Kakashi "I'm happy that I don't have on my team."

"What nukenin?" Asked Asuma

"Three idiots that thought they were going to kill Naruto." Explained Kakashi "Aoi and Demon Brothers when we were going to Kiri. End result was three nukenin less and for us nice bounties, nice gift for Mizukage and nice sword for Naruto as it is his family heirloom."

Four ANBU entered area of the exercise and ran towards place which they were ordered to check, when they got closer to it they felt a lot of residual chakra covering the area. When they landed there they saw three shinobi knocked out, one of them rather violently as she was thrown into the wall and by the looks of it, she had several broke bones as they punctured her skin and were visible outside of her body.

"Whoever did this had a lot of chakra." Said Ookami that was in charge of this team. It looked like berserker or someone who fought extremely brutally was here, or just someone that was angered and wanted to vent off some steam.

"They are alive, but have fractured and broken bones." Said Tori as he finished diagnostic jutsu "She is in the worst shape" He added pointing at Sakura, as around her already formed small pool of her own blood and her clothes were soaked in it.

"It is most certainly Naruto-sama handiwork." Said Neko "Only he has enough of strength to throw her like that into the wall."

"Grab them and we are getting back to control center." Ordered Ookami as he was looking around. During such exams people had itchy fingers and were ready to attack even ones that they weren't supposed to attack so ANBU were on edge.

Four ANBU appeared with those bodies inside of Control Center and when they did that they walked with them to Hana, who after all was sensei of that team. When she saw the state in which they were she only sighed, it would be troublesome and tiring. Not to mention that she would need to deal with her annoying little brother.

"Wow." Said Kakashi when he was able to get a closer look at those bodies of knocked out genin. "I know that they are strong, but this is just wow."

"I must agree with you." Sighed Hana and leaned over body of Sakura, where were visible several burns, rather severe ones. "Kakashi what is that?" She asked pointing at them, they were red and were growing rapidly, which was a pretty strange sight, at least for her.

"After effects of bijuu chakra." Said older jonin "You won't do much, it needs to heal on its own. You can give her painkillers and a lot of water as she might have fever and few other things."

"How do you know about them?" Asked Hana

"Previous jinchuuriki of Kyubi was a girlfriend and later wife of my sensei, and let's say that I had several meetings with that chakra, so I know how to deal with it." Explained Kakashi "And there was also being in ANBU."

"So one task out of three done." Said Shikamaru, when Naruto and Sasuke returned to their hideout with their prize in hands. He was the only one awake as it was almost middle of the night, but when those two arrived rest of group woke up and sat around small fire that wasn't betraying their location as it was hidden in small nook. Almost impossible to spot from above, only Inuzuka might be able to spot it using his sense of smell, but other than that nobody really as it was really well hidden.

"And one more team less." Added Sasuke "Kiba, Shino and Sakura had a meeting with us."

"They are alive, although Sakura barely." Said Naruto, answering unanswered questions about them.

"We have two annoying tasks and we can be done with it." Said Shikamaru "While hurrying with them will be troublesome, it will be certainly less troublesome than not hurrying with them."

"Yes." Agreed Sasuke "But we need to lay low for a moment as we got attention of almost everybody who isn't blind to chakra. Did you feel this short burst of chakra full of rage and malice?"

"Yes" Said Ino "It was terrifying."

"It was my doing." Said Naruto "My sixth sense kicked in and reacted to the attempted attack from behind."

Sakura was disoriented, she didn't remember being in soft and comfortable bed inside of some building, last thing she remembered was the exam and that terrifying orange hand with those scary claws that thrown her into the tree and it came out of Naruto back. And it behaved like it was ordered by someone else than Naruto.

"Where am I?" She asked noticing her sensei sitting on the windowsill close by.

"Infirmary of control center." Said Hana "You and your whole team were pulled out of the exam once you had run in with team seven. You tried to attack Naruto from behind and he defended himself."

"But that orange hand didn't look like jutsu, it looked more like a demon of some sort, it looked like Kyubi." Said Sakura and didn't notice glances between her sensei and Kakashi.

"It was only his chakra, but shaped in certain way." Said Hana, carefully choosing her words, knowing well how dangerous was that topic. "You tried to back stab him and his Uzumaki Kekkei Genkai reacted to it in such way."

Teams Seven, Nine and Ten were leaping from branch to branch, looking for last piece of data that they needed to find to do their missions and once they were done they could go to the one of entrances and exchange them for a pass. They didn't want to spend more time than necessary in this forest as they wanted to do nothing or had more interesting or less troublesome things to do.

"Fifty meters to out right is the missing piece." Said Hinata as she was using her Byakugan

"I concur." Added Neji once he checked it. Whole group lightly changed direction in which they were running and quickly got to that place in which was hidden this missing piece of puzzle.

"I got it." Said Ino

"Let's go." Said Shikamaru and looked at Neji "Lead the way. Avoid other teams if necessary. Naruto and Sasuke flanks."

They only nodded and ran towards the gate that was closest to them and that was one of marked points which they could use to complete their assignment and get out of the field. As they were running through the forest they didn't meet or spot any team on their path, which meant it was harder than they thought as they at least expected one or two teams to try to ambush them on their way to the gates. It could be one of the easiest ways of getting your job done without actually doing it as it would be done by someone else.

Gate was surrounded by cleared patch of land as well there was cleared patch of ground near the borders of training ground so nobody would go in or out without being seen by guards that were milling around. When teams 7, 8 and 10 landed in front of gate they were met by one of proctors, flanked by two ANBU that were her protection and guides around the training ground.

"So teams Kakashi, Asuma, Gai?" Asked proctor, just to be sure."

"Hai" Said Naruto "We did our tasks and we want to finish the task."

"Hand me what you have found and I will check them to see if they match with what you were supposed to find to pass this exercise." She said and received things found by those teams in the forest. She looked at them and later at the list of things that they were supposed to find. It was all correct. "It is correct. You can pass through that gate."

"Thank you proctor-san." Said Naruto as he walked past her and through the gate leading outside. Where they were met by their sensei looking at them.

"You did good." Said Kakashi looking at his team. "You have five days of break and once it is over we are going to train. It will be joint training between our teams. Each of us will focus on different aspect of shinobi arts and every single one of you will spend some time with each to work on certain aspect of your knowledge of ninja arts."

"We want you to congratulate on finishing it as a third fastest team and excellent work between those teams as we know it was rather hastily made alliance." Said Asuma looking mainly at his team.

"It was less troublesome to work with them, than not to work with them." Said Shikamaru, yawning and trying to stay awake which was a hard thing for Nara to do as they adored sleeping and being lazy.

"Now scram." Said Kakashi and those teams disappeared from the clearing heading for their houses or clan compounds to rest and relax.

Meanwhile in Konoha Hospital...

"You want to tell me that this is the current level of knowledge of average medic?" Yelled Tsunade at now former Director of it, who managed not to flinch under the gaze of Sannin. Yet this director didn't know he was former one, he still hoped to save his skin and position. She was holding in her hand sheets of paper with results of tests made by her and they were less than her desired level of knowledge, in fact they were well below that level.

"I'm sure that it was only an accident." Said Director and crumbled inside when he saw incoming fury of Tsunade who didn't like his answer, not at all and it looked like she needed to vent off some steam, question was who was her target. So far it looked he was her target and he hoped that he could sacrifice one of his deputies and get away with it.

"Same as dozens of fucked up routine procedures." Snorted Tsunade and pulled out another scroll "As well there is that little matter of treatment of Heir Apparent to Senju Clan and Heir Apparent of Sandaime-sama." When she said those words director paled a lot and gulped, much to her amusement, but it also fueled her already incredible fury and she was barely restraining herself from punching a hole in the wall with his body.

"I'm sure those things can be fixed." Tried to say director and Tsunade once again snorted.

"You are fired!" She yelled at him "From today I'm new director of it and if you don't like it you can ask Hokage-sama about it."

"But..." tried to say Director and caused another outburst.

"If you don't remember I will enlighten you about it. I was the one that set up this hospital and Hokage-sama returned me to that post and I hoped I won't need to remove you, but situation has changed and now scram out of my sight, before I will check how tough are those walls by launching you through one of them." Yelled Tsunade and director disappeared out of the room as he wasn't even inside of it. She sighed and walked to now empty chair behind the desk in the room and once sitted in it, she could finally took a good look of the room as before she was on a warpath and was too focused on everything else to pay any attention to the room.

She nodded approvingly when she felt how soft was this chair and leaned comfortably in it, it was pretty big office and it looked good, at least in her opinion. Large windows behind her desk provided plenty of light and it was painted in neutral colors, walls were covered in various drawers, shelves and cabinets to store documents and data. Most of which she would need to check one by one and there was also matter of medical files of Naruto, which she didn't have a heart to open yet. She knew that they were going to be bad, but she wanted to deal with problems at hand before looking through them as they could cause another rampage.

Moments later Shizune entered the room with large stack of papers in her hands and on top of them couple of scrolls were placed and she was balancing it carefully as she was walking to Tsunade desk where she placed it.

"Those are reports about working of each department and state of inventories." Said Shizune as she placed them into smaller and neater piles. "It seems that only part of hospital restricted for ANBU usage is working quite good, rest is obnoxious and I would honestly fire all of them and find new medics. But than from what I know about the Academy after talking with Naruto and his team no wonder it is so bad, considering that Academy standards have fallen."

"Well, it looks like I have work cut out for me." Said Tsunade, sighed and opened first report, which contained state of inventory. She briefly skimmed it and silently cursed when she read it more carefully. It looked like someone did pass poor job with keeping inventory of healing plants and other supplies at appropriate level. "Contact with Nara and Yamanaka clans and buy as much as they can sell, later look for other sources of supplies. Without them we won't get too far as without supplies we can't work. If you need money use Senju vault as they only grew for last twenty or so years."

"Hai" Said Shizune

"And send heads of every department to my office as I want to speak with them." Shouted Tsunade before Shizune disappeared through the doors. When she heard those words she started praying for safety of those deputies, as a current mood of Tsunade was one in which she was going to murder them, slowly and painfully.

"Hai" Said Shizune walking out of the room.

"Good to see you back home, Tsunade-sama." Said Eiji, who was head of laboratories that were belonging to the hospital.

"Good maybe for me." Said Tsunade looking at heads of departments gathered in front of her. "But certainly not for you, I will be honest with you. All of you excluding Bull should be fired on the spot as you let standards slip. But since I'm in merciful mood you have three months to get them back at my desired level, if not I will be more direct with getting them up to speed. I will be checking your work and procedures, as well as I will be doing more complicated ones until I can trust you with carrying them out. Bull you won't receive same treatment as you seem to have all under control."

"Hai" all or them muttered as they sighed with relief, knowing well that they were guilty and Tsunade could fire them if she wanted to do so.

"Scram." Said Tsunade and they left as if they were blown away by strong gust of wind that came out of nowhere. When they left her office she placed on her desk scroll containing all medical files of Naruto, without any censorship that was done on official ones. When she opened it and activated storage scroll she saw large pile of papers appear in front of them. Most of them was quite old, however there were plenty of new ones as well. She picked up them at random and while those top ones were the ones that she expected to find, that is chakra exhaustion or injuries suffered during training. Other weren't so expected, they were clearly showing abuse and she wanted to murder ones that did this as they didn't know what they did or to whom, if heritage of Naruto was announced he would be called Naruto-sama.

Naruto shunshined to the gate leading into Senju compound and walked inside dreaming about only two things. Warm and comfortable bed and long bath before it, he was tired and covered in mud, dirt, old blood and other things after that exercise. When he walked inside, he saw Tsunade and Shizune pouring over some papers that were strewn across the table placed on a porch running around main building.

Tsunade only looked who was coming and smiled when she saw Naruto, it looked like good old times when she had her younger brother Nawaki, they were so similar in appearance and character. "You're back." She said "I didn't expect you to finish it do quickly."

"It wasn't anything hard, only annoying thing." Replied Naruto as he walked towards compound and once he walked inside, he headed for his room and bathroom placed nearby. He wasn't smelling fresh, that was putting it lightly. When being honest he was stinking, after all blood, dirt, mud and smoke left by explosive notes leave unpleasant smell. He took long bath that allowed all of tensed muscles to get loose and he was able to relax. Rest of the day and of his break was spent relaxing and working with Shizune on poisons and medical ninjutsu as he had natural aptitude for them as he had nearly perfect control of his chakra.

Once those five days of break were over in front of gates of Konoha were gathered three genin teams and they were only awaiting their sensei. That is Sarutobi Asuma, Hatake Kakashi and Maito Gai to get there. All of them had on their backs backpacks with all things that they might need and some of them had storage scrolls as well as those backpacks. When they gathered there it was early in the morning and in the distance was visible rising sun.

"Yo" Said Kakashi when he and rest of sensei appeared in front of their genin "We are going to place where we will be able to train without any interruptions."

It was the beginning of their journey to chunin rank...

 **A/N: This is the end of first arc and beginning of second which will cover time till after chunin exams, maybe there will be something similar to Sasuke Rescue Mission or maybe not. Next two chapters or so will be solely focused on training in preparations for the exams. Third one in this arc will be first part, fourth and fifth second part of the exam. Sixth preliminaries, seventh to ninth finals.**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N – A little shorter than usually chapter, but I wanted to split certain thing into three or so parts and for that it needs to develop a lot slower. Preparations for chunin exams are coming up nicely and more will be revealed during next few chapters as they are going to speed up even more.**

 **Itachi is being mentioned, yet he didn't show up, but he will soon and in a manner that many will leave shocked and surprised. But mainly shocked.**

 **Reviews:**

 **Color of Kyubi chakra – in anime at the beginning it is red, yet later when Naruto masters it, it is golden or orange in color, so I went with orange as he has at least working relationship with him and is using one without anger, hate and blood lust filling it.**

 **I intentionally left a lot of things unsaid as they are going to be revealed during couple of next chapters and some of them might shock you as you won't expect certain things.**

 **Sakura, Sakura, Sakura, let's just say she is in interesting situation, one that is going to be fully explained and revealed in next couple of chapters. This one is hinting what is going on and next will give whole answer.**

 **Grammar – I'm trying to fix as much of it as I can, but always something escapes my eye and I need to fix it later and since I'm lazy I usually forget about it.**

Teams Seven or better known as Team Kakashi and by some called 'New Sannin', Team Nine, better known as Team Gai and Team Ten, better known as Team Asuma walked out of the village heading out of it for their training trip before chunin exams, it would be only thing they were going to be doing until it was the time for an exam.

"We will go towards one of old training fields far from Konoha." Said Kakashi answering unasked questions of genin. "Each of you will train for some time under each of us, Gai will focus on your taijustu and physical aspect of things. I will work on miscellaneous things and part of nature manipulation, while Asuma will work on weapon handling, part of nature manipulation and general ninjutsu. But first we need to talk about how chunin exam looks."

"It is three parts exam, first one is written test to check data gathering and your knowledge about ninja arts, but mostly data gathering, as chunin can be asked to gather some important piece of intelligence." Said Kakashi, first finger raised "Second part is survival exercise in one of training fields used by ANBU or similar unit to train. One part of teams get one scroll and second receive other scroll and you need to get missing scroll, with both of them you can pass. It is the most dangerous part of the exam and death is a common thing there. Most of casualties are caused by this part as teams fight each other to get second scroll."

"And the last part is a show, series of one on one duels in the arena in the middle of the village with dignitaries and nobles watching them. Between second and third stage there is always a small break, around a month in length, but can wary between one exam and another." Finished Kakashi and genin nodded when they heard those words.

"First part of your training will be with me my youthful students." Said Gai "We will work on your physical conditioning, so that we can fan your flames of youth."

"Is he crazy?" Asked Naruto looking at Kakashi, who didn't care about those flames of youth as if they were something normal. Or was used to them.

"Sort of." Shrugged off silver haired jonin "But he is excellent taijustu user and he will train you in physical aspects of our arts."

"As I was going to say." Said Gai "We will work on your taijustu styles so that you are at least proficient with them and you can safely use them, and that you will be able to get away from fight with too strong enemy."

"Second part of our trip will be mainly spent with me." Said Asuma "Those that use weapons will train with me in them, while rest will work on normal ninjutsu. We will focus on normal ninjutsu useful for every ninja and later on nature transformation. While it isn't skill usually taught to genin and you learn that when you are chunin, it will help you a lot as there are many handy jutsu."

"Last part of training will be mainly with me." Said Kakashi "We will work more on ninjutsu and some of you that have aptitude for genjutsu will learn basics of that art. I also plan on working on strategy and tactics with you. Not to mention how to make the most basic traps and other things that are useful during such exams."

"How is hospital coming along?" Hokage asked Tsunade, when they were sitting in his office and talking about chunin exams. Everything looked good so far and it looked like Kiri was going to agree to terms that he suggested for it.

"Honestly, I would fire three quarters of medics and hire new ones." Said Tsunade "They are bad, really bad. I was shocked by what they didn't know when I was checking them. Supplies were in even worse state, but you wouldn't believe what simple talk can cause, now all of them are working as they should be and supplies are slowly rising. I will need around few weeks to get it going at the level that I left it when I left the village, it should be running smoothly when we will have the last part of chunin exams."

"Good" Said Hokage and slowly nodded "So are you planning to stay in Konoha for longer or it is just for a short time?"

"I will stay for longer." Tsunade said "After all I have my clan, or what was left of it to take care and I missed Konoha too much."

"Good" Slowly said Hokage and looked at her "Day before finals of the Chunin Exams there will be a Kage summit and I hope that you and Jiraiya are going to be my guards during it."

"I can manage to do that." Said Tsunade and Hokage nodded in agreement. "I do not fancy it, but I will do that."

"I would like you to start training most of shinobi to have the most bare knowledge of medical ninjutsu as that could save as a lot of losses that we suffer simply because we don't have shinobi with training where and when it is needed." Said Hokage

"While medical ninjutsu is out of reach of most of shinobi." Said Tsunade "I should be able to train most of jonin as they have good enough control for it and most propably one member from each genin squad. Rest can be taught basics of first-aid and how to treat most common wounds and poisons."

Hokage winced when he heard part about not everybody being able to learn medical ninjutsu. "I guess it will need to suffice."

They traveled for over three hours before they stopped to set up the camp and start training. They were deep inside of the forests surrounding Konoha and not many should be able to spot them doing their training here as they were hidden from bushes on all sides and nearest road was over two hours away at shinobi speed which meant they were pretty safe both from spies and from causing collateral damage to the surrounding and passerbys.

"Naruto-kun you are using Nature Fist?" Asked Maito Gai looking at one of his temporary students

"Hai" Naruto replied.

"Than it is perfect." Said Gai with bright smile "My Iron Fist is based on it, so I will be able to help you with it and I guess you use chakra to strengthen strength of those punches."

"Hai" Said Naruto "I don't have famous inhuman strength of my family, but I'm close."

"That's great." Said Gai "I will work with you on accuracy of those attacks and how to make them stronger without using chakra. While you usually will have enough chakra to use them or you will be focused enough to channel it into one tenketsu and release it, sometimes there are situations when you need to hit hard even without it or you can't simply spare chakra for an attack."

After that Gai gaze landed on other members of their small group. "Sasuke-kun you are using Interceptor Fist of your clan and while I don't know all katas of it, I will work with you on purely physical side of things. Strength, speed and agility as without them your Sharingan will be completely useless as you won't be able to move fast enough to respond to the attack."

"Hinata you are practitioner of Juuken, yet Kakashi said you are Suiton user which makes normal Juuken useless, but not this version." Said Gai taking out scroll from one of pockets of his vest "It was developed by your mother as she was also a Suiton user and Hiashi-sama allowed me to show it to you as you will greatly benefit from it. It is more fluid and less static than normal version of Juuken."

"Ino and Tenten you two don't need good taijustu training we will work on getting it up to speed so that you can escape from superior enemy and beat weaker ones." Said Gai "So that means a lot of physical training and working on speed and evasion techniques as those will be the most useful for you. You are more of a support fighter than a frontline one so you don't need to know the most advanced taijustu attacks on the planet, basics will be enough for you."

"Neji and Lee with you I will work the way I used to work during our normal team training as there is no point in changing it too much as it works quite well and you are used to it."

All of them slowly nodded as those words were sinking in them and they were able to fully digest meaning of them, yet they were unaware how painful this training was going to be for them. After that Gai opened small scroll from hid backpack, slapped it onto the ground and opened it, inside of it was visible small storage seal, which became active when Gai channeled some chakra into it. It spewed out nine sets of bands, four for each person. Two for legs and two for arms, those were chakra weights.

"Those are chakra weights." Explained Gai "They are currently set to twenty-five pounds each, in total hundred , but during training we will increase the weight of them to propably twice as much as it is now. If not more than that, but we will see. They are going to help you with training as they will make your muscles harder and make them develop faster and to greater degree, you will be faster and stronger once we are done with this training. Everything clear so far?"

"Hai" Everybody said at the same time.

"Good" Nodded Gai and looked at his genin "Now it is the time for training. Give me fifty push-ups, sit-ups, squats and five laps around the field as the warm-up exercises so that you can get started with training."

Ino looked at Gai as if he was crazy and later her gaze switched to her sensei, who only shrugged and motioned her to follow the example of rest of genin that were already doing their warm-up exercises and didn't even seem to question orders coming from Gai as if they were used to such training.

"Get going Ino." Said Gai looking at her "It won't escape you, the sooner you are done with it, the sooner we can start the next phase of it. Which will be a proper taijustu training, that is fixing your katas and working on how to fight as fighting as a brawler isn't the best idea and you will easily get beaten by your opponent."

"Hai" She weakly said and started going through those exercises, which seemed easy and straightforward, but when in such numbers her body started effect of them as there was a lot of them and she didn't train as much as she should or at least was expected from her. She only mostly trained in her clan jutsu, but they weren't a thing that would solve all the problems.

"Kushimaru, Raiga and Ao are responsible for providing security to second stage of chunin exam." Said Terumi Mei as her gaze swept over shinobi that stood in front of her desk inside of her office. It was a nice desk and even nicer office, located at the top of Mizukage tower, with beautiful view of whole Kiri below. "Same you will coordinate our own Sharks with Konoha ANBU, as they are going to send eight teams of their ANBU to help us with the security of the exam."

"As you wish Mizukage-sama" Said tall shinobi wearing Shark mask ans typical Shark outfit, to his back was strapped long two-handed sword that was his primary weapon as Kiri shinobi loved their blades and most of them were masters of one, if not multiple types of them and usual tactic was for a members of the same team to switch them during middle of the fight to confuse their enemies as not many were accustomed to such things.

"Good" She softly said and looked at Yagura "You, Ao, Kushimaru and eight Sharks are going to accompany me to Konoha for Kage Summit. I want you Raiga to track down Utataka and bring him back to Kiri, outside of providing security to the exam, it has second highest priority."

"As you wish Mizukage-sama" Said mentioned shinobi.

"Are you trying to kill us, Gai-sensei?" Asked Ino, when they were done with warm-up and most of them were laying or sitting on the ground, visibly tired, if not exhausted as their bodies were covered in sweat and grime. Team Seven was propably in the best shape out of them thanks to their sensei that trained them into the ground during their earlier sessions and they were used to such training. Not as extreme as this one, but still pretty hard.

"No" Shrugged off older shinobi "I'm just trying to fan your flames of youth."

"I would call that a torture, if you ask me." Said Naruto

"Since we are done with warm-up." Said Gai and looked at his students, while other jonin were securing their training area and camp with various wide area genjutsu, traps and were setting up the camp for them to rest and sleep. "I want all of you to start practicing your taijustu styles, slowly going from kata to kata, I want to see how good you are with them and how precise are your moves."

All of them nodded and moved away from each other to have space to practice those katas, as some of those strikes were laced with chakra and if they were going to collide with body of other person it could end rather badly for one that was hit with it. A lot depended on where this hit connected with target, but even if it connected in rather harmless place, it could still cause huge amounts of damage to one that got in it path.

As they were going from kata to kata Gai was walking around and correcting their stances, telling them how they could improve their movements and what they could do to be even more dangerous with their respective styles as some of them were more defensive than offensive. So strikes that were working great in one, in second weren't as effective or as useful, while ones that were in first useless, in second they could find their second life.

"Naruto-kun what do you know about Hachimon?" Suddenly asked Gai looking at Naruto.

"That those are the eight valves in chakra pathways system that control and stabilize flow of it through our body and to make it bearable for it as otherwise, it would be simply destroyed from the inside. Opening each of them gives temporary boost in power, but at the great cost as it damages your own body whole doing so. Opening the last one, will grant average civilian power ten times bigger than that of fully rested and trained Kage, but he will pay ultimate price for doing so, he will die once he will finish it. As his whole body will be ripped apart and completely destroyed, as it isn't used to such stress." Replied Naruto

"Do you know how to open those gates?" Asked Gai as he suspected a thing or two about Naruto.

"When I was trying to open them I went up to the fifth or sixth gate." Replied Naruto "I know I would survive opening all eight due to my condition, but it would leave me exhausted and propably out of commission for something like a week or two."

"I thought about showing them to you, but now I don't need to as you know them already." Said Gai "On the other hand, I will work with you on getting your strength to desired level."

"Thank you, sensei" Said Naruto lightly nodding and looked at his sensei.

"Do you know about resistance seals or gravity ones?" Asked Gai looking at Naruto.

"Yeah" Said Naruto "Yamato-sensei placed them on me when he started training with me and they were designed to adapt to development of my body. I didn't check them in a while as I don't need that much strength during fights."

"Can you disable them and test how stronger you are without them?" Asked Gai

Naruto nodded and focused on six points where were placed those seals, one on each arm, one on each leg, one on his back and one on his chest. When he did that they started glowing blue for a moment before his whole body got covered in intricate patterns of kanji that were starting at those six points and crisscrossing each other. They glowed blue and disappeared completely from Naruto skin, leaving nothing behind.

"Impressive amount of seals." Said Kakashi who joined Gai, when he felt pulse of chakra "I wonder how much faster and stronger you got after removal of those seals. I know that you are able to keep up with ANBU when they are running full speed."

"Yamato-sensei wasn't the only one who trained me, Itachi was my sensei for quite a some time." Said Naruto "And he was the one that left me that tattoo." As Naruto spoke he bared his forearm, where was visible Seal of Brotherhood of Uchiha clan, that is Uchiha Crest with two swords crossed under it.

"I haven't seen one in over fifteen years." Said Kakashi as he saw them, they were rarely known outside of Uchiha clan.

"What are their?" Asked Gai looking at Kakashi and Naruto

"It declares ones that have matching set of tattoo as brothers in all, but blood and they can't cross blades with each other, unless during training or friendly tournament. Also during battles they fight side by side." Explained Kakashi "And since you didn't destroy yours, you know something about that night."

"Yes" Sighed Naruto "I know the truth behind it, but I can't tell you. Not yet and propably not any time soon."

"You better keep it hidden from Sasuke." Said Kakashi and Naruto nodded, slowly covering that place back with bandages to hide it from prying eyes "As it might set him off on you."

"We will see." Shrugged off and looked at Gai.

"I want you to try to attack me in taijustu." He said "I want to see how strong and fast you truly are. Do not hold back, I will be fine, even when you will hit me with all that you have."

"Hai" Said Naruto charging at Gai and starting with powerful punch aimed at his opponent chest, Gai blocked it, but was pushed backwards by the power behind that punch. Naruto didn't have a lot of time to think as moments later he was forced to dodge punches coming towards his chest and abdomen. He dodged some, while he blocked rest or more properly attempted to block rest as he was thrown backwards by them as they were rather powerful ones and fast ones as well. When Naruto landed back on his feet after last round of dodging he looked at Gai and prepared for another round of fighting.

"That is enough." Said Gai looking at Naruto "You hit extremely hard and now you need to work on speed of those blows and how to change direction of them, so that enemy doesn't know from where next one is going to come and where it is going to land. Kakashi will you show it to him?"

"I will" Replied Kakashi and motioned for Naruto to follow him.

"Very good." Said Gai when he saw how Hinata moved from kata to kata of that version of Juuken, it seemed that change of style was enough to solve the issue of her struggling with taijustu and having problems in fighting using it. "It seems that normal Juuken wasn't destined for you, but this one is designed for you. You flow from kata to kata like it is something natural for you and you do that effortlessly."

"Thank you sensei." She said bowing lightly.

"Don't need to thank me." Said Gai "After all it was Hiashi-sama who gave me those scrolls for you."

"But you are the one that helped me with training." She protested

"True" Agreed Gai

"Nature transformation is an ability when you transform your chakra to have a one of the five most basic chakra natures that were exists." Said Sarutobi Asuma looking at his students, all of them were sitting on the ground in their camp, which during those past weeks changed significantly as now they had better shelters and proper training areas. "There are Katon, Fuuton, Doton, Raiton and Suiton, usually ninja has one nature of it. As you train and your body develops you can get additional ones, but that isn't the rule." He finished for a moment to let them digest that piece of data before continuing, but this time he took out piece of paper from one of his pockets. "That is chakra paper, you channel your chakra and it shows your affinity. Burn it is Katon, split it is Fuuton, wrinkle it is Raiton, crumble to dust it is Doton and get wet it is Suiton. Who wants to go first?"

"I might as well." Said Naruto and Asuma handed him that piece of paper. Naruto put it between two fingers and channeled a trickle of chakra into it, when he did that the paper reacted to it showing his affinities. It split into three parts, one wrinkled, one burned to dust and the last, but not least one sprouted several small leaves. Other people other than Kakashi, Sasuke and Hinata were shocked as they didn't expect so many affinities for him to have.

"You have all five affinities and Kekkei Genkai." Stammered Asuma looking in disbelief at Naruto.

"I guess cats are out of the bag." Chuckled Naruto when he watched their expressions as they were staring at the remains of that chakra paper. "I have all five affinities, but I mainly use three, Doton, Suiton and Katon plus my Kekkei Genkai. Rest I know mostly the basic jutsu as I focused on those three as they suit me better."

"Well, it will make training you interesting." Said Asuma and looked at the rest "Do the same thing." Genin nodded and got chakra paper from Asuma, who watched the results. "So Hinata has Suiton, Sasuke has Raiton and Katon, hard to tell which one is stronger, Chouji has Doton, which isn't shocking, Shikamaru has Katon, which is rather interesting one and useful for him. Ino has Fuuton which is an extremely rare nature to have in Konoha, but perfect for support ninja as he can attack from long range. Neji as suspected has Doton, typical for almost all Hyuuga, Tenten Suiton and Lee can't use his chakra. Not bad, Kakashi will work with ones that have Raiton, Suiton and Doton, while I will work on Katon and Fuuton. Naruto what about you?"

"I thought you were never going to ask, sensei." Said Naruto "I will mainly work on my own on Mokuton jutsu as I need to finish one of them."

"Good" Said Asuma and looked at the rest of students "I know that Sasuke and Hinata already did the first and the most important step of their training, so you will work on jutsu that are rather useful and helpful. Rest of you grab leaves from the tree and start trying to get them cut in case of Futon, soaked in case of Suiton, burned in case of Katon, crumbled in case of Doton and wrinkled in case of Raiton."

While many thought that training to master their nature was going to be a pleasant thing soon they were cursing everything and nothing as it was really exhausting and frustrating one. They were staring at those leaves in their hands and trying to do something with them, yet mostly nothing to them happened and causing them to get angry. And adding an insult to the injury was the fact that they saw Naruto, Hinata and Sasuke working on their jutsu or doing more advanced exercises that were the last steps of training in each nature.

"It's so frustrating." Yelled Ino "Nothing is happening to that leaf."

"You need to focus your chakra on it and channel it though it." Said Asuma amused by the antics of his student that was rather frustrated by the looks of it.

"I'm channeling it and nothing is happening." She yelled

"Calm down, focus on your chakra and channel small trickle of it into the leaf." Said Asuma "Small tip for you, when channeling try to move in opposite directions, so that they are going to tear apart the leaf. Fuuton is one of the hardest to master the basics, but more advanced exercises are rather straightforward and easy to understand."

"I might have a jutsu for you." Said Kakashi looking at Sasuke "It was created by my sensei, Yondaime Hokage and you saw it being used by Naruto numerous times. It is called _Rasengan_ and it is spiraling sphere of chakra that is quite destructive. It is also great chakra control exercise and one that will be a good beginning for me to teach you one that I want to teach you, but you aren't quite ready for it. As it requires making flow of chakra rather chaotic and you will learn that with Rasengan. First step is this." Said Kakashi throwing at Sasuke water balloon.

"That's just a balloon filled with water." Said Sasuke once he grabbed and looked at thing he was holding in his hand.

"Yes" Agreed Kakashi "Your task is to make it burst into pieces, using only your chakra."

"It seems easy." Said Sasuke looking at it and focusing his chakra on it and the water inside, causing it to bulge out and to change shape. Yet it wasn't being blown into pieces.

"You see the problem?" Asked Kakashi looking at his student who was completely focused on his task.

"Yes" Sighed Sasuke looking at balloon, which still didn't want to blow up.

Haruno Sakura didn't enjoy herself as following the exam she was detained by ANBU that didn't even answered her or her sensei questions and simply dragged her with them into some direction. She looked up from her cot and saw bare concrete walls of her new room, there were completely basic necessities here and bars instead of doors. It didn't look too good for her. She heard footsteps on the corridor outside and turned her head in that direction, she saw man that she recognized as Yamanaka Inoichi and one that she didn't know, yet only his presence was sending shivers down her spine as he looked quite scary. He was wearing long black trench coat and on his head was bandanna with Konoha symbol placed there, his face was covered by three long scars running across it and they made him look scary and dangerous, like nobody should mess with him.

"So you want to get as much out of her mind as possible?" Asked man that she identified as Inoichi.

"Yes" Agreed second "But do not damage it as she is only a suspect, although it might change really soon as few people opened their hearts and decided to speak."

"Okay" Said Inoichi slowly nodding and walking towards cell in which was Sakura, he pressed his hand onto the wall to the right of those bars and they simply disappeared. He moved forward and grabbed Sakura head before she could react or say anything in protest.

Inoichi landed in disgustingly pink room that was Sakura mind, he looked around and saw images of Sasuke, heavily idealistic and with so heavily idealized that almost unreal, on the other hand there were also images of Naruto, but those were complete opposite of ones that were showing Sasuke. He saw many minds during his work in T&I and earlier in the field, but this one was one of the worst he ever saw and it made him want to puke only at the sight of it. It looked almost unhealthy.

Gazing around the room confirmed a lot of his suspicions about Sakura and why she did the things she did, also suggested she might have been influenced by someone, really strongly. Question was by whom as in normal mind, such strong images rarely were created unless person was deep in love or hated someone to the bone for a reason, yet she didn't have a reason to hate Naruto on her own as she didn't know about him being a jinchuuriki.

Inoichi left her mind and looked at Ibiki "You were right that someone influenced her, there are images that can't form on their own."

"Question is who is responsible for that." Said Ibiki looking at unconscious form of Sakura held by Inoichi be her head.

"I might have an idea, but I will need to check it." Said Inoichi

To be continued...

 **A/N Part Two – Yes, Sasuke is going to learn Rasengan as I said earlier it is a great jutsu and in anime it didn't have a lot of attention excluding spam of clones with it thanks to Naruto. Here they are going to use it more carefully and in better ways. However for Sasuke it is a step on his way to Chidori, as Kakashi won't show him Chidori outright, he will rather show him all piece of a puzzle and let him figure out the rest. As for me there is no point in showing the end product without showing the steps through which you need to go to get to the desired thing.**

 **Many will say that Naruto is OP, but he isn't. He is powerful in terms of muscles and power, but those two things rarely give you an advantage in fight. Things that grant you a victory are experience, knowledge and ability to outsmart your enemy, look at fight between Kakashi with Sakura and Naruto. Naruto and Sakura had more chakra and were more powerful, yet he was able to avoid them and force them to be careful, while he had less chakra and power.**

 **If you want an example from real life look at three battles 1605 – Battle of Kircholm, 1610 – Battle of Klushino or 1805 – Battle of Austerlitz where winning side had less troops and in most cases was in worse position, yet it managed to win and loss less troops than the enemy.**

 **Naruto will get beaten by certain enemies and realistically speaking considering his lack of experience he is around middle to high chunin level as of now. By the time of the finals of chunin exams he will be high chunin as most of time between parts of those exams and now will be spent not on learning new things, but polishing ones he knows right now.**


	10. Chapter 10

"It's so frustrating." Yelled Sasuke after his another attempt to make balloon burst into pieces using solely his chakra to do so.

"Yet I can do that without any troubles." Said Naruto as he picked up one and focused his chakra on the object in his hand, which moments later burst into countless smaller and bigger pieces. "You need to make your chakra more chaotic, you have it too organized and it is only stretching the ball, instead of forcing it to burst into pieces."

"What do you mean by too organized?" Asked Sasuke narrowing his eyes and looking at his blonde friend.

"Look at the ball in my hand." Said Naruto as he slowly formed _Rasengan_ there, he was doing slow enough so that Sasuke could see how it was being created, while he couldn't copy it with his Sharingan, he was able to see how it was donee. "There is no pattern in how chakra moves in it, it's just random. It just move in every single direction inside of the ball."

"I see." Said Sasuke and tried it again. This time trying to make his chakra as chaotic as possible and the balloon started warping in all possible directions at the same time, sign of chakra being more chaotic than organized.

"You are going in a right direction." Said Naruto when he saw the balloon warping in all directions. "But still you have a long road before you reach your target and that is only first step. I finished it in one day, but I abused _Kage Bunshin_ to do it and I have much more chakra and it is way denser than normal, so you won't struggle as much as I did."

 **o-0-O-0-o**

" _Suiton – Suiryudan_ " was heard all over the training ground as Naruto finished running through the chain of handseals and in front of him formed large dragon head made out of water. Once it was complete, it charged at designed target, that is large boulder twenty meters away from Naruto. When it crashed into it, it almost completely obliterated it as the force of impact was so huge and it left it in dozens, if not hundreds of pieces. But also this boulder was heavily damaged by previous attacks that repeatedly crashed into it for last few days and other people that were in the area got used to sound of water hitting the stone.

Naruto looked at the results panting heavily, it was exhausting trying to do it multiple times in a row as he was doing it now. He was trying to completely master it to the level of his ancestors from Uzumaki clan and Senju Tobirama, who were able to do it only with three handseals and it was extremely tiring for him to get it done. He was down to fifteen signs, getting here was relatively easy as he quickly was able to cut them in half, however once he get beyond that point it was getting harder and harder with each sign. Last one took him over fifty repetition of this jutsu to get it done.

"It's so exhausting." Sighed Naruto as he sat on the ground, trying to regain his breath. It looked like he reached his limit for today, but it was still impressive amount of repetition of jutsu, over fifty if he remembered correctly, he lost count after thirty or so as they were boring.

"Normal shinobi would be dead by now." Said Kakashi once he saw that Naruto was done for now "You propably burned more chakra during this training than I use through whole week as you are launching one A-rank jutsu after another without any break between them. While it is a good method for training it isn't perfect one. I had similar problem when working on _Raikiri_ , which is perfected version of my first original jutsu _Chidori_. While through your route I could get to the desired effect, I would spend few more months, if not years and I would be propably exhausted and frustrated at the end of training. Instead I focused on my mastery of pure Raiton chakra without any changes of shape or anything, just pure chakra."

"But I already know the master exercise of Suiton manipulation." Said Naruto looking at his sensei.

"Can you do it instantly?" Asked Kakashi with raised eyebrow looking at his student. "As the faster you do it, the better mastery of the element."

"No" Said Naruto "It usually takes me some time to do it."

"Than that explains the problem." Said Kakashi "You need to do it faster, way faster as it will also help you with all Suiton jutsu."

"I guess you are right." Said Naruto looking at him, opening his palm and focusing moisture from the air above it, trying to form the sphere made out of the water. It was hard exercise and unless someone had a lot of chakra, it was as well extremely exhausting as gathering particles from the air and getting water out of plans was an extremely taxing thing to do. After all there was a reason why only Uzumaki and Senju clan members were able to finish this exercise and master it completely as they had copious amounts of chakra, yet even most of them was exhausted after few hours of working on it.

 **o-0-O-0-o**

"This is not good, not at all." Said Jiraiya when he read a message from one of his spies. It looked like Orochimaru was on the move and planned to attack during the exams, question was who was his target. But guessing possible targets wasn't the hardest things to do as there could be possibly only two matching his criteria Senju Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke as they had Kekkei Genkai that he wanted. Respectively Mokuton and Sharingan and since he craved for power, those two would match his set of desired criteria, both of them incredibly powerful and both of them incredibly rare. "Looks like it is the time to recall back Crow and Shark, and get them to give proper and more advanced training to Naruto and Sasuke."

Jiraiya pondered his options for a moment, until he decided it was the time to consult his sensei as he needed to accept this move and he headed towards Hokage tower where he should be sorting through his usual paperwork.

 **o-0-O-0-o**

Jiraiya was right as the moment he entered the office of the Hokage he saw that his sensei was digging out of the papers that were surrounding him from all sides.

"We have a problem." Said Jiraiya without any introductions "Orochimaru is going to attack during the exam and there are only two possible targets for his attack and we both know them. I want to recall Crow and Shark as we know enough about Akatsuki and they will be more useful as teachers for Naruto and Sasuke or as ANBU tasked with the protection of the exam."

"You might be right." Said Hokage looking at Jiraiya "As I would like to keep Crow outside of the village for as long as possible we need him here and now. Recall them to the village and tell them to meet Naruto and prepare them for the exam."

"As you wish." Said Jiraiya jumping out through the window and running outside of the village as he needed to get to the River to leave the message in next drop off point they were going to check and place a book with an phrase that was an order for recall.

 **o-0-O-0-o**

Uchiha Itachi was sitting in a small cafe reading a book when certain words got his attention, ones that were a certain phrase. _'When the tree leaves dance, one shall find flames. The fire's shadow will illuminate the village, and once again, tree leaves shall bud anew.'_ It was almost an innocent looking sentence, while in truth it was a code ordering Itachi to return to Konoha, along with Kisame.

"Looks like we need to head home." Itachi said looking at Kisame and showing him those words. He didn't expect being called so soon, but he guessed a thing or two changed and they decided they needed an Uchiha as a warrior, rather than as a spy.

"Indeed we need." Agreed sharkman as he also was one of spies recruited by Jiraiya and he had perfect cover for the job, nobody would suspect a thing about him being a spy as he was wanted by Kiri for killing few people and stealing Samehada. "I wonder who send this message as not many know who we are."

"Don't know" Shrugged off Itachi "We will see soon as I have a feeling about who did this."

Kisame only nodded and left the cafe, followed by Itachi, they needed to check one of drop off points where they were leaving messages for Jiraiya-sama to collect and to pass further onto Hokage and highest leadership of Konoha. It was serviced by two ANBU that were only leaving and receiving messages, unaware who was the one that was using those drop off points. They were placed in innocent looking places so that nobody who knew for what he was looking for was able to locate them easily. At least without detailed informations about it placement and how to open it.

Itachi leaped onto the branch of tree that was growing in front of cafe in which they were, followed by Kisame as they dived deeper into the forests surrounding the town in which they stopped to rest and eat something. Being in Akatsuki had one advantage, you didn't need to care about money as they had plenty of it from various S-rank missions that they carried out for various countries that didn't have their own shinobi to do that or weren't able to pay for shinobi from one of the great five.

They ran for few moments until they landed in front of hollow in tree trunk, that looked like it was nothing special yet it was special. Itachi put his hand inside searching for scroll or piece of paper that should be there and should be containing their new orders. He found a piece of paper which he removed from it, straightened and opened to see the content of it. It was covered in small and neat writing of Jiraiya-sama who was they master of spies of Konohagakure no Sato.

" _Look for a Trident with a Fan of second founder to find what you seek. Founders need to unite and protect each other. Your brothers are in danger, train them and protect them. Snake is on the move."_ Was written on that piece of paper and it didn't make too much sense, that is for the most of people who would saw it, while for Itachi it made a lot of sense as he knew who was the one they were to find. When he read it he whistled loudly as he didn't expect to be told to look for this person. And second part of it was even more worrying as he didn't really like what he was asked to do as he knew who was moving to attack Konoha, only half blind and deaf person wouldn't be able to guess that, as not many hated Konoha with so much passion.

"What is it Itachi?" Asked Kisame when he noticed loud whistle of his partner.

"Not what, but whom we need to find." Said Itachi with a little of respect visible in his voice "One of my students and propably one that I had the most fun teaching, not to mention that he is my blood brother."

"Who is it?" Asked Kisame

"Senju Naruto." Explained Itachi "From what I know he is outside of Konoha in one of the training fields preparing for chunin exams, for which he doesn't need to prepare as he has enough power to beat most chunin without breaking sweat."

"Interesting person." Said Kisame

"Indeed" Agreed Itachi "And we need to protect and train him and Sasuke as Hebi-teme is on the move and might attack them."

"Samehada loves his chakra." Chuckled Kisame "I don't have a problem with doing that as it will be a fun mission to do."

 **o-0-O-0-o**

"Dragon prepare teams that are going to help with the security of the second stage of chunin exams." Said Hokage looking at ANBU Commander "I want teams suited for assault and one of trackers. Prepare plans for evacuation of the whole exam, if S-rank criminal is spotted."

"Hai" Nodded Dragon "It will be done as you wish."

"Good" Said aged leader and looked at second shinobi that was standing in front of his desk, Nara Shikaku "I want you to create plans of defending the village, assuming we will be attacked by Suna, Kusa, Oto and Ame. Assume that other Kage will side with us, send a message to Kiri and ask them to send whole Swordsmen group here and ten squads of Sharks to help with the protection of the stadium and Konoha during finals, inform them that we expect enemy to attack. Do not name him, but hint Suna."

"Hai" Said scarred jonin commander, he was usually lazy and easy going, but that wasn't true when he had a task to be done. As not doing it usually was a worse option that doing it, so than he was fully focused on task and hand and committed his whole energy to get it done.

"Jiraiya" Said Hokage looking at the resident sage of Konoha "Try to get as much data on Orochimaru as possible, what forces he has and who is going to be his ally in this enterprise of his. I want it as late as two weeks from the beginning of third stage."

"It will be done." Said Jiraiya "My spies are already working on it and I also got a lot of data from Kiri and Kumo as they were approached by Orochimaru who was trying to get them to support him. I believe that from Kumo he retreated a little burned and from Kiri with melted arm."

"Good" Said Hokage trying to contain his laugher as he imagined Orochimaru with melted arm.

 **o-0-O-0-o**

"How sure you are about this?" Asked Ibiki

"Pretty sure." Replied Inoichi "Only someone really close to her could influence her in such way as only person close to her would have time for something that sophisticated."

"So she has her mind warped by someone that hates Naruto." Said Ibiki "That makes things interesting, assuming she doesn't harbor any hatred aimed at Naruto she isn't guilty."

"From what I saw." Said Inoichi "She doesn't have, but I didn't scan her mind carefully. I only looked for obvious signs and I was trying to see general shape of things."

"Mayhe we should ask Mebuki about what she knows." Suggested Anko "We can assume that we won't get anything useful from Sakura without breaking her and we can't do that, but nothing is said about Mebuki."

"That might be a good idea." Said Ibiki "It is obvious that she has some part in it as we have agreement between her and Aoi, but question is, is she the one behind the whole plot or only the paw that is controlling other."

"I know that you think about Danzo." Said Inoichi looking at Ibiki as all of them were considering what to do with their problem "But he doesn't have anything to gain here, for me it looks like she is the mind behind the whole plot. Danzo would never use lousy nukenin, he would use something much better. And as we know that he doesn't agree with Hokage-sama on everything, but we are sure he is loyal to Konoha and killing Naruto is the most stupid thing he could do as he is the only wielder of Mokuton that can pass it onto his children."

"Okay" Said Ibiki "Inoichi try to fix what you can in Sakura mind and get as much from Mebuki as you can, Anko try to get as much as you can from Mebuki. You can damage her to some extent, but nothing crippling or maiming."

"Spoilsport" Muttered Anko and added louder "I will do that. Ask any specific questions or general ones?"

"Focus on Sakura, Naruto and why she hates Naruto so much." Said Ibiki "Especially the last part."

 **o-0-O-0-o**

Inoichi liked his job inside of T&I, but sometimes it was so damn frustrating as they could spend hours upon hours while attempting to break through the shields of one person and to no effect. Yet it looked like today was his lucky day, he easily managed to get through Mebuki shields and now it was the time to see her mind and what was inside of it.

He landed in room colored in neutral colors, which meant it was or at least should be a healthy mind, although that wasn't always true as some only looked like healthy from the outside and inside they were completely rotten and were falling apart. Inoichi sighed and looked around for memories and much to his surprise found a thing that he didn't expect to find, that is barriers protecting them. He pulled out of her mind and looked at Anko who stood nearby.

"She has some powerful barriers around her memories." Said Inoichi looking at Anko "Do you have any toxin that would weaken her neural system? I can break without doing that, but it is going to exhaust me and I would need help of other Yamanaka to punch a hole through them."

"I have something." Said Anko as she pulled out small vial with toxin, it was tinted green, but other than that it didn't have any color. "It will weaken her whole body severely, it won't kill her, but will make her weak, really weak and she shouldn't be able to fight you."

"Good" Said Inoichi keeping Mebuki head in his hand as he waited for Anko to inject the poison into his target bloodstream, thus allowing to let him work on her.

"It should start working momentarily." Said Anko as she finished injecting it into the bloodstream "It is used by snakes to catch their prey so it needs to work quickly to be useful for them."

"Let's try this again." Said Inoichi focusing on Mebuki mind and once again entering it. This time he didn't spend that much time entering it as toxin started working and first effects of it became visible. He focused on her memories and this time getting to them was easy, really easy which meant those barriers were made by her mind trying to protect what was the most precious to it as they fell when toxin started working. It meant that she couldn't have help from shinobi and she was doing that mostly on her own, not with help from Danzo or other person that was trying to gain something.

He focused on her image of Naruto and her memories connected with him, trying to find what could be a reason for her hate aimed at that particular blonde as he himself liked that kid as he saw him often inside of Nara compound playing with Shikaku or Shikamaru shogi, which for him was a little of a strange sight as he didn't expect to see someone being willing to play with Nara in shogi.

" _Interesting"_ Mused Inoichi watching those memories of Mebuki that related to Naruto and her image of him. _"As I suspected she hates him because of the Fox sealed inside of him, but that isn't the only reason for her hate of him. Spending several hundred thousand to get three nukenin on him and influencing her own daughter to try to kill him. No, there is something fishy going on, really fishy."_

Knowing what he already know Inoichi focused on other thing that might be a lead for him, that is how announcement of Naruto being a Senju affected her as he suspected that a thing or two were connected with it. He knew he hit a jackpot the moment he saw first memories and her thoughts about that council meeting when Hokage announced who Naruto was and announced that Senju seat was one again filled.

" _So she hates him mostly because of her falling position because of him being a Senju."_ Thought Inoichi watching those memories and seeing her thoughts, some of them were rather disturbing and dark. As he was used to seeing weird things inside of minds of those that he interrogated, those were on completely different level and directed at something different. _"Now hiring nukenin and influencing her daughter to do her biding would make sense as her gains would be huge, assuming she was able to carry out her plan. Wait, she isn't the only one."_

As Inoichi was watching those memories he saw more people connected with this whole mess and as he suspected they were ones that were losing the most from Naruto claiming his clan and seat held by it. Which meant more people to catch and more annoying interrogations. Inoichi didn't even need to watch more for the moment. He pulled out of her mind and looked at Ibiki who joined them.

"Good that you are here." Inoichi said looking at his friend and Commander of T&I "Few more to catch."

"Who?" Ibiki asked with raised eyebrow

"Two more from civilian council, cousin of Mebuki and as you do that grab their shinobi bodyguards as they should report about her plots." Inoichi replied "Also ask Danzo if he has anything of importance about our dear friend here."

"Hokage-sama won't like those news." Said Ibiki and snapped his finger, momentarily in front of him stood three ANBU Captains. "You heard who you need to catch. Get them here and I don't care where they are, I want them here in fifteen minutes. If you need to get them from the middle of the main street get them."

"Hai" All of them said and vanished from sight. Knowing well that this wasn't looking good and was only getting worse as Hokage was going to be furious. And that the council would be pissed off as they didn't like what shinobi were recently doing.

 **o-0-O-0-o**

"Since you managed to pop the balloon your next task is to do the same with those balls." Explained Kakashi as he showed Sasuke full bag of small rubber balls. "It is a harder task as the material is tougher than that of balloons and there is only air inside of those balls, instead of water. You need to increase amount of chakra you are outputting to do the task and thus it is harder as you need to have better control over it and you need to make it denser than previously."

"It seems easy." Said last Uchiha looking at those balls and thinking how to get it done as he remembered previous step and it seemed rather similar to that one. But when in previous one he focused on rotation, this one seemed to be focused on sheer power of this jutsu.

"If you understood first step and you know what to do it is easy." Said Kakashi "But sensei spent over two years working on this step when he was developing this jutsu for the first time."

Sasuke only nodded and focused on the ball that he grabbed with his right hand, slowly increasing output of chakra he was putting into the ball. It took some time but soon it started deforming and changing shape, which was a good sign as it meant he was going in a right direction. However between going in a right direction and getting the expected result was two completely different things.

 **o-0-O-0-o**

"I honestly didn't expect you to be so good with nature manipulation." Said Asuma as he watched genin that were almost done with their respective exercises and learned jutsu they wanted to learn. It was a rather interesting thing as those things were technically already on chunin level, but most of them managed to learn couple of D-rank jutsu from their element and one or two of C-rank which should give them plenty of tools during the exam as not many genin expected to against enemies that knew such jutsu. "Since in three weeks time we are going back to Konoha, it is time to talk about the shape of the exam and technically we shouldn't be telling you this part, but we will tell you what to expect from each stage and how you can tackle."

"First task is data gathering exercise as you receive sheet with question that is created by someone from ANBU, Hokage or other high ranking ninja. Those questions technically are impossible to answer for anybody that is on genin level. But in the room are placed fake examinees that know the answers, but also some of you might know the answer to those questions. Which means that you need to cheat somehow, but obvious attempts are going to be shot down by the proctors. Which are looking for every such attempt."

"Bothersome." Muttered Shikamaru "It basically means that we need to somehow work together to get this exam done as troubling it is."

"That's the gist of it." Said Kakashi "Next stage is bloody. It is survival exercise that is carried out inside of one of training fields, we usually use Forty-four or Sixty-one."

"Forest of Death" Said Naruto remembering the unofficial, yet very true name of the Forty-four "Very, very pleasant training ground. Everything there tries to kill ans eat you." When Naruto said that every genin was a little pale as they didn't expect it to be so dangerous.

"But this year Kiri is responsible for this task of the exam." Said Kakashi "So we propably don't need to worry about animals and plants inside of it being dangerous, but they are only an obstacle. Each team receive one part of set of something and need to get missing pieces from other teams and do that in set amount of time, and deliver it to some place where the stage finishes."

"So we need to find other teams with missing pieces of set, kill them, do not get killed in the process and get to that place where it ends?" Asked Sasuke who was sharpening his sword, which already was sharp, but you never could have a sword that was too sharp.

"Yes" Said Kakashi "A good idea would be for you to team up and work as a single unit, three teams working together have a higher chance of survival in the area than ones that are working on their own. After that stage there are preliminaries for finals which are held some time after the stage, it changes from the exam to exam, but it is between four to six weeks of break. During that time you train with whoever you want in preparations for your fights as the finals are series of one on one fights in front of Kage of the village."

"This year there is Gokage summit during finals." Said Naruto "All of them will be there, along with advisors and bodyguards."

"As I was going to say, Kage and proctors decide who should be promoted to the rank of chunin and who shouldn't, their judgment is final and nothing can change it." Said Kakashi "Those that proceed to the finals are the best of the best of their village and clan. You can expect forbidden jutsu, hidden jutsu, all kinds of famous jutsu and so on as participants train under the best of the best."

 **o-0-O-0-o**

Haruno Isoroku was walking through the street of Konohagakure no Sato with his wife and youngest son when around them landed masked ANBU with weapons pointed at them.

"Do not move." Said one with Neko mask as she signaled for ones behind to catch their target. "You are under arrest for plotting against Konohagakure and Hokage-sama."

"I'm innocent." Shouted Isoroku as he saw small crows gathering around and watching the scene.

"You will explain that when you will be interrogated." Said Neko and looked at two ANBU that stood behind the group. "Take them to T&I."

"You will release them at once." Said shinobi in chunin flak jacket that appeared on the building above the street and was looking at Neko.

"Good" Said Neko and snapped her fingers, when she did that eight more ANBU appeared behind those ninja. Each of them placed kunai or other weapon at the throats of those ninja. "You are also taken for questioning. You will explain yourself to Ibiki-sama."

 **o-0-O-0-o**

Naruto was sitting on top of tree stump and was deep in meditation when he felt source of chakra that he didn't have an opportunity to meet for last two years. It was moving with one way bigger towards his position, when he detected them he remembered the time when he last saw Itachi before the downfall of Uchiha and that message passed to him by a monkey with certain scroll with ANBU equipment for those two so they could sneak inside of Konoha without answering uncomfortable questions.

When he felt them stop moving Naruto opened his eyes and looked in direction where they should be and he was right as red on black cloaks were rather easy to find between browns and greens of the forest. He quietly whistled in certain pattern that was known only to ANBU and waited for reaction from Itachi who nodded and jumped onto the ground getting closer to Naruto.

"We are shadows of the tree..." Started Naruto looking at Itachi as he knew that most of people that were attempting to _Henge_ into him would fail on it. He also pointed his katana at Itachi awaiting his reply.

"We protect it from there and without us it would fall..." Said Itachi reciting second part of motto of ANBU.

"We are ANBU first to arrive, last to leave. Always faithful to the village and Hokage." Finished Naruto looking at Itachi and slowly withdrawing swords he had at their throats for the safety sake. You could never be too safe in such situations as some ninja were killed as they were reckless.

"What had we sworn?" Asked Itachi looking at Naruto and revealing tattoo on his forearm.

"To treat each other as brothers in all, but blood." Said Naruto as he revealed matching tattoo "Not to raise weapon against each other unless in training or during friendly tournament and to protect each other during battle."

"Good to see you." Said Itachi as he looked at Naruto "Where is Sasuke?"

"Somewhere in those forests." Shrugged off Naruto "Kakashi helps him with _Chidori_ or more properly with creation something similar to it."

 **o-0-O-0-o**

 **A/N – Itachi is showing himself and he is going to cause quite a lot of chaos really soon as he will reveal what happened during that night inside of the Uchiha district. Situation with Sakura is getting more interesting and it will take some time to reveal it fully as they have almost all of the necessary pieces, but are missing just one and it will take them some time to get it.**

 **I hope this line break will be visible as I'm losing ideas for what is going to work on everywhere else I use various things and I don't have any issues with them being shown properly.**

 **Since 4** **th** **of July was yesterday and most of my readers are from US, I will spoil you a little and today will be uploaded three chapters. Two of Uchiha Siblings and one of Hokage's Heir where action is getting more crazy and crazy.**


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N – Chunin exams. I want to make them different and show them in different light, because in anime they are just a small step on a path taken by Sasuke to run away from the village and to the Orochimaru. While it is said that they are a time to show the strength of the village and genin trained by it so I decided to let's say assume that every jonin would try to help his team as much as possible with getting to the finals.**

 **Also there is a second thing, it is said that they are an event that should promote a friendship between villages so why not make it in two different villages. Forest of Death is nice and all, but it also cliché, while training grounds used by Kiri not so much and they will be a bigger challenge than 44 as in that forest you need tree walking and expect big and dangerous animals which isn't really challenging. While training ground which is mostly compromised of open plains, marshes, lakes, rivers, sea and some forests is way harder as you need more knowledge, better preparation and everybody can find their element. You are from Iwa you will stick to the plains as those are the best areas for your jutsu, same as from Suna. You're from Konoha you are going to stay in forests and so on. I might throw a thing or ten into the mix to make it even more challenging for those that will take part in it and from that arc rating will go to M as it will be extremely bloody arc.**

 **Blades or other weapon forged before the fall of Uzushio will be treated here similar to Valyrian steel weapon in AGOT, they will be able to reforge those blades, but they won't be able to create new one. They won't be as rare as Valyrian Steel, but still pretty rare, although Konoha will have more as they had close ties with Uzushio. They will be mostly katana, there will be also other weapons, but not in such quantities as normal katana or other blades. If you have a good idea for a weapon, who should get it, from whom, when and why I might consider giving it to that character. Out of question are Naruto, Sasuke, Kakashi and I think those are all that won't get one more as they already have one or have so many that it would look weird.**

Naruto looked at Itachi and Kisame, and beyond them. There was something badly amiss like they were being followed by someone that wanted to attack them. He extended his sensing ability and detected sixteen almost blank chakra sources that didn't show a sign of emotions. They were moving quickly towards their position as if they were chasing someone or wanted to attack.

"Itachi-nii are you sure you weren't followed?" Asked Naruto looking at the Uchiha standing in front of him.

"Yes" Simply replied Itachi and did the same thing as did Naruto. "Sixteen sources, around middle chunin or so, completely blank. ROOT?"

"My thoughts." Said Naruto "So like good old times."

"Indeed." Nodded Itachi as he moved closer to Naruto. "We will draw them into the open and kill them here."

Naruto only nodded and pulled out his swords out of their scabbards, he knew that those ROOT were only annoying people nothing more. They might be a challenge to weak jonin, but to three of them they were only an annoyance that needed to be killed. He looked at Itachi who nodded as they were communicating without a word spoken between them. It was effect of them training and fighting together for some time.

"Kisame deal with ones that will try to get past us." Said Itachi and watched as huge Kiri nukenin nodded. Itachi took out his old ninjato that he still had from his times as one of ANBU from before the massacre, while Kisame lifted massive Samehada of his shoulder and started stretching his muscles.

They didn't need to wait too long for their long expected guests to arrive, before them could look at their targets they were already dead with kunai or shuriken embedded in their throats or eye slits of their masks. This opening salvo reaped four operatives that thought that they were safe, while in truth they irritated rather large and angry pack of predators.

Naruto glanced at Itachi and they together charged at the remaining twelve shinobi that were still there, while Kisame stood and watched those two slaughter ROOT operatives without any troubles. They worked like a team that fought together for a long time as one of them protected the second one from any attacks that could come from behind him. It didn't took them too much time to get all of their enemies on the ground and mostly dead, some of them escaped gravely injured, but not for long.

"They won't say a thing, so there is no point in keeping them alive." Sighed Naruto as he took kunai from his holster and walked to one of those that weren't dead, yet. He kneeled in front of ROOT ANBU and plunged kunai into his throat, killing him on the spot and getting covered by the blood of one that he killed. "I hate doing clean-up after mission."

"You volunteered to do so." Said Itachi as he looked around, checking for more ROOT stupid enough to attack them. "So how is Sasuke?"

"Quite good." Replied Naruto "He isn't as broody as he used to be and he is less focused on killing you and more on training and becoming strong as he is bored of being constantly beaten into the ground by me."

"You know why I did what I did." Said Itachi as he watched Naruto checking if all of those dead, were really dead just for secrecy and security sake. "I needed to give him a reason to get stronger so I used one genjutsu to cause him to hate me and to get stronger and to kill me."

"I know" Said Naruto and looked at Itachi "You didn't take any Sharingan with you, did you?"

"No" Slowly said Itachi "Why do you ask?"

"Because there are at least ten of Sharingan missing." Said Naruto "You gave me Shisui one for safekeeping, but a lot of them were harvested from dead bodies right after you left. And I don't know where they went, nobody knows if I was being honest, they simply disappeared. I have suspicions, but even I won't dare to poke this beast without ANBU holding swords on his throat."

"We will worry about them later." Said Itachi as he launched himself at one of ROOT that tried to stab Naruto from behind. He didn't even have a chance to lift his hand as his spinal cord was cut and along that his head was disconnected from the rest of his body. "Seems one of them wasn't actually injured."

"Thanks." Said Naruto as he finished making sure all of those ROOT were dead and none of them were simply faking their injuries or death. Nobody liked doing it as it was gruesome and wasn't particularly pleasant, but it was a needed thing. When Naruto was done his armor and clothes were stained with blood and were mostly red as he got showered in plenty of blood while making sure that those enemies were dead. At the same time past his head flew hail of kunai causing him to turn into direction from which they came. He saw Sasuke and Kakashi charging at Itachi, while Gai and Asuma paired together and attacked Kisame.

Naruto only sighed when he saw it, it was being a troublesome thing and a little annoying. He focused on his chakra chains, which erupted from his hands and back charging at Konoha ninja as well as Itachi and Kisame. Moments later all of them found themselves tied like a Christmas gifts and were unable to move, they were glaring at Naruto and struggling against those binds that trapped them.

"What the hell is going on?" Asked Kakashi when he overcame his initial shock.

"I was going to explain it, but you decided to crash a party." Said Naruto snapping his fingers and freeing Itachi and Kisame from chains that caught them. "You stay tied as I don't have patience to watch out for you not try to kill each other. Especially you Sasuke."

"Let me go!" Yelled Sasuke "I want to kill him! He killed our whole clan!"

"I don't think so." Shrugged off Naruto "You would need to beat me to get to him and I'm in no mood for getting killed or for that matter for killing you. Kakashi-sensei what is the last part of ANBU motto and oath that you swear when you are accepted into Black Ops?"

"Always faithful to the village and Hokage." Said Kakashi as gears started spinning in his head as he was thinking about events of certain night, two years ago. "Uchiha massacre, wasn't a normal massacre. There is something more that happened that night."

"Finally one that can think." Chuckled Naruto as he took out small black scroll from pouch on his belt and threw it at Sasuke. "Read this, this is copy of original mission orders. Original is locked deep within ANBU HQ. But for the knowledge of all of you Uchiha clan was planning a coup d'etat against Hokage and the village, first attempt to deal with it was foiled by someone, pushing Hokage to his limits and ordering Itachi to kill the clan. Originally orders were to kill ones that knew about the thing, but than ROOT invited themselves into the mess and whole clan was slaughtered. Sasuke survived because Itachi protected him and managed to kill ones that were after him."

"I knew that the cover was farfetched." Said Kakashi as he sat on the ground and watched expression on Sasuke face change as he was reading those orders. "As that didn't suit Itachi at all, but I didn't want to think deeper about it so I didn't look at details of it."

"Someone that thinks." Chuckled Naruto and looked at them "Are you going to try to kill each or can I let you go? Struggling against those chains is rather pointless, they are strong enough to bind bijuu in place and any chakra used against them is eaten by them."

"Let me go." Screamed Sasuke "I want to kill him!"

"Looks like not." Sighed Naruto "Good thing that we have a lot of time to spend here and I'm in no hurry as technically I don't need to participate in this exam. It is you that should be worried about it."

"I want some answers, but I know that killing the only source would be pretty stupid." Said Kakashi, while other jonin nodded. They were somewhat used to working with traitors and other people of questionable origin. Naruto nodded and snapped his fingers, removing bindings keeping them in place, while keeping ones that kept Sasuke in place, along with other genin who simply stood in the distance and watched the scene that was happening in front of them.

"What about me?" Yelled Sasuke as he tried to break those bindings that kept him in place. Yet he didn't even have any success in doing so as those bindings were made out of pure chakra and were able to hold a bijuu in place, so keeping genin in place was an easy thing for them. Also they were eating chakra that was used against them and used it to reinforce themselves, thus turning weapon used against them into an even stronger shield.

"For Kami sake shut up." Sighed Naruto, focused on his chakra and flashed through a couple of seals, which caused for some branches to grow up around Sasuke closing his mouth shut. "Much better."

"Where were we?" Asked Kakashi as he watched Sasuke attempts at breaking those bindings with some amusement, he knew that they were impossible to break as he had some experience with them.

"Uchiha massacre." Said Naruto "Whole clan got killed and that was Itachi's ticket to the Akatsuki, organization that wants to collect all nine bijuu for some unknown reason. We needed a spy or two there and as such he was a perfect choice, Kisame was a lucky event that happened and those two were under cover for some time, but Orochimaru is on the move and he will either target me or Sasuke so Hokage decided that we need two big and nasty bodyguards."

"I guess it makes sense." Said Kakashi "Now it is getting more sense as I said before that whole cover story was so full of holes and missing pieces that every shinobi worth his salt should see through it as if it wasn't even there. Also there were more suggestions that it was an assassination mission, not a massacre. Wounds, usually through heart or carotid artery, quick and relatively painless death."

"Indeed." Said Itachi "Also it was better choice than the second option, all out civil war inside of Konoha. How much time do you have before the exam begins?"

"Two weeks." Said Asuma "We planned to get back home in week time."

"I need to get to Konoha as soon as possible." Said Itachi "We need to report to the Hokage-sama and there are also those fake ANBU that are laying dead around us."

"Ne" Spat Kakashi "Danzo tools."

"I know" Said Naruto "And question who is their target as I don't fancy being kidnapped by Danzo."

"I planned to spend a week or something staying here and training both of you." Said Itachi "But I guess we will do that in Konoha."

"Itachi catch." Said Naruto throwing at him storage scroll "Those will come handy for you. Same for you Kisame."

"ANBU Gear?" Asked Itachi as he caught the scroll.

"Yes" Replied Naruto "Toad with them appeared few days ago as it will be easier to get into Konoha with you in ANBU gear as not many will ask questions or uncomfortable questions."

o-0-o

"Can you explain to me why half of civilian council is missing and second half wants your head?" Hokage asked looking at Morino Ibiki, head of T&I and one responsible for those missing people, along with few others.

"Getting to the bottom of plot aimed at Senju Naruto." Explained Ibiki "It started with Inoichi looking through the memories of Sakura, which led us to her mother, which in turn led us to the rest. They won't get out of my claws at least until the end of this if not the next week."

Hokage was going to say something when in front of him appeared brightly colored Toad with scroll in its hand. It was one of messenger Toads and only two people were Toad summoners, which meant it was either Naruto or Jiraiya, but question was what was the content of the scroll.

"Naruto-sama sends this." Said Toad before disappearing and leaving the scroll behind her. Hokage picked it up and opened, revealing storage seal in the middle of it. When he channeled some chakra into it, on his desk appeared pile of dead bodies and small note, all of them were dressed in ANBU uniforms, some of those masks destroyed by a passing kunai or shuriken. With few words which were easy to understand ' _Do not spy on me! Naruto'_ End explained why those ANBU were dead and why Naruto was pissed off, extremely pissed off guessing by his reaction.

"This is interesting." Said Hokage as he watched pile of corpses that appeared on his desk. After that he looked at Ibiki who also was watching those bodies that laid there, slowly dripping some blood onto the desk and floor around it. "Did you send ANBU after Naruto?"

"No" Said Ibiki "If I wanted to ask him something I would send ones that know him and as such wouldn't get this kind of reaction from him or whoever was with him."

"Danzo is playing his games." Sighed Hokage "Get me Tsunade and Anko here!" He added way louder in direction of ANBU that stood in the corners of the room, hidden under powerful genjutsu. After that he rubbed his temples and looked at Ibiki "Because only he would be stupid enough to attack Naruto with those idiots."

"So you want me to look for proof to catch him?" Asked Ibiki knowing well the answer before he even asked the question.

"No" Said Hokage "But try to gather as much data about him as you can and to neuter his forces. Crow and Shark are going be back with Naruto so they will happily help you with those insects."

"It will be an interesting time." Said Ibiki "Considering how many teams are for the chunin exams and security risks caused by them. It seems that every single village sent at least a dozen of teams, if not more."

"They want to see what Naruto can do as he is my heir." Said Hokage "So they will try to test him during the exams or before them. Assign him one team of ANBU to follow him inside of the village at all times."

o-0-o

"What is so important that you called me into your office?" Asked Tsunade as she walked into the office occupied by Hokage and stopped the moment her eyes landed on that pile of corpses. "Who sent them?" They looked freshly and brutally killed, she would say murdered in cold blood by rather angry ninja that didn't like being followed by spies.

"Your very, very pissed off grand nephew." Explained Hokage "They were spying on him and that is effect, can you tell us what was the reason of their death?"

"If you really need to know." Said Tsunade as she threw them onto the ground to be able see all of them. When all of them were on the ground she took a look at them and immediately noticed kunai-shaped hole in most of their necks. But those weren't the only wounds, most of them had various wounds associated with blades. "Most of them was killed by the kunai that passed through their throats, but in many it just helped them with getting quick death as most of them would bleed out in few hours after receiving previous wounds and it was just a mercy blow. One of them got his head severed from the rest of his body and rather brutally at that, I would say Fuuton infused blade. Four are dead because of those shuriken or kunai in their eyes that passed through them to their brains, killing them instantly. If I was going to guess who did this it was rather skilled swordsman or someone with ANBU training." When she finished she looked at Hokage who was only nodding at those words as if they made sense for him.

"As I suspected." Said Hokage "I just wanted to be sure about the cause of their death and what caused them as I have a pretty good idea who is responsible for this handiwork. Senju Naruto and Uchiha Itachi. There is a lot of things that you don't know about Itachi, but he killed his clan on my and elders orders as there was a coup in making by Uchiha and we couldn't risk civil war. So Itachi was as a spy and I recalled him to protect Naruto and Sasuke from Orochimaru."

"I see." Said Tsunade "Can I go back to fixing hospital?"

"No" Said Ibiki "I need your help with making some poisons and antidotes for my guests as we have few resistant prisoners that don't want to talk and I need to get data out of them quickly. I'm dismantling plots aimed at Naruto or one that is rather extended and hard to fully track down."

When Ibiki mentioned Naruto Tsunade nostrils flared as she looked at him. "I will help you with that, it was a long time since I needed to use all of my knowledge and abilities."

o-0-o

Naruto skidded to halt as he jumped away from Itachi holding his katana and looking at older Uchiha, who just forced him to crazy dodge. "How did you become so good so quickly?" Naruto asked as he eyed Itachi and tried to recall every single piece of data about his fighting style.

"Kisame is one of the seven." Said Itachi "So constant duels with him helped me a lot, we use different blades, but he also helped me with some katas of my style."

"So that's why." Said Naruto as he charged at Itachi, his katana glowing with chakra that was flowing through it. He rarely had so much fun during duels or spars as he had when he was fighting Itachi. They were so far using only kenjutsu, but it could quickly erupt into ninjutsu fight. Their blades crashed in the middle of the field as they tried to force each other to surrender and to let other win. It was a hard struggle as Naruto was strengthing his muscles with chakra, while Itachi was using his normal strength and they were evenly matched. After few moments of such tie, Naruto jumped away and looked at Itachi, but before they could start once again, they were interrupted by Kakashi.

"It's enough, you two." Said Kakashi as he saw them "Pack your gear, we are getting back to Konoha."

"Already?" Asked Naruto, not believing that the time passed so quickly.

"Yes" Said Kakashi "It is week before the exams and we don't want to be late for them."

"Okay" Nodded Naruto and looked at Itachi "It was a good idea for me to refresh those skills with you. It seems that you didn't lost your touch when you were a nukenin."

"You only got better." Admitted Itachi "I wonder what we will be able to do when fighting at full power."

o-0-o

Inoichi sighed when he once again entered mind of Haruno Mebuki and tore through badly placed shields there as he was searching any data that they missed that she could provide them with. They managed to collect a lot of data out of all of those that they caught, but the problem was with combing it and putting into a one and solid image that would make some sense to everybody that would need to see it.

He didn't even bother with looking very thoroughly through her memories as he did that already few times and this time he was looking for anything that escaped their attention and usually such shards were hidden somewhere else than the main memories by the mind of person that wanted to hide them. As mind usually was made out of compartments so throwing those things into other usually was enough to fool most of people looking for them. But this time he didn't find anything new or shocking, just more evidence to support what they had and that was more than enough to accuse ten or more people without too much of a trouble.

"Nothing new." He said once he pulled out of her mind and looked at Ibiki who stood nearby. "Only more things to confirm what we know or suspect."

"What about Sakura?" Asked Ibiki

"Her mind is a mess." Sighed Inoichi "Fixing it will be a long process, it isn't something that can't be reversed, but the sheer scale and for how long it was created is a problem. I will try to fix as much as I can during breaks, but she needs to have her body flushed from all of those drugs that were fed to her."

"That is better than I expected it to be." Said Ibiki "If you find anything useful send me an ANBU with it, as I'm going to talk with Hokage-sama about it, so that he can deal with this mess once and for all."

o-0-o

"Thank you for your report." Said Hokage as he finished reading report provided by Ibiki "Are you sure those are all of the ones that are connected with this plot?"

"We can't be sure as we might have missed someone, but we are certain that ones that we knew that are connected with it are in our hands." Said Ibiki

"Good" Said Hokage "Ones directly connected with the plot I want executed, while rest will be decided by council. Shinobi that failed to notify us about those plots are stripped of their rank and are on probation until I see that they are fit for anything more."

"Hai" Said Ibiki "What about Haruno Sakura?"

"She is innocent as she was manipulated so I want you to fix the damage and you can release her." Said Hokage and Ibiki nodded.

"It will be done as you wish." Said Ibiki and walked out of the office to get those things done.

o-0-o

"It feels good to be back in Konoha." Said Naruto when they crossed the gates of Konoha. Most of them was a little tired after those last rounds of training, but effects of it were visible all over them. They walked more confidently and behaved like true ninja should, not like a brats that were trying to be one.

"Indeed it dose." Agreed Sasuke as he was was walking slightly behind with Itachi to his right in his ANBU uniform, so that he could enter unnoticed and without questions.

"Exam starts in week time on Saturday at ten in the Academy, room 301." Said Kakashi as he looked at genin "Until than you can do whatever you wish to do."

They nodded and walked into Konoha, most of them heading in twos or threes wherever they wanted to go. Naruto walked towards area where were Senju and Uchiha compounds when he saw three Suna shinobi. He lightly nudged Sasuke who nodded and moved blade on his back to more comfortable position.

"I suggest that you release Konohamaru." Said Naruto as he saw Suna shinobi, propably a puppeteer holding grandson of Sandaime Hokage. And the same time Naruto rested his Bo staff on his collar bone as he looked at those shinobi. "And do that gently and slowly."

"He bumped into me." Said puppeteer

"He is grandson of Sandaime-sama." Said Naruto as his cheerful expression disappeared and instead appeared cold business mask. "So attacking him might be a bad idea. If I wanted to I could kill you in something like fifty different ways. Also there are those four ANBU that are in the area and third member of your team that doesn't seem to be happy about what you are doing."

At the same time on the bark of the tree appeared swirl of the sand from which stepped out person with tattooed kanji for love over his left eye, there were huge bags visible around those eyes in which was visible a glint of insanity. On his back was visible huge gourd full of sand, which was a base for most of his attacks.

"Kankurou you are a disgrace to out village." Said that boy as he emitted powerful killing intent. So strong that Naruto eyes narrowed, he raised his hand in a sign that told ANBU to be ready to interfere. "Leave him or I will kill him."

"Gaara" Stuttered puppeteer as he released Konohamaru who quickly hid behind Naruto.

"Hello Ichi" Said Naruto looking at that boy "It seems you are still as crazy as you used to be. Trying to possess another jinchuuriki?"

"Mother wants your blood!" Shouted Gaara "What is your name?"

"Senju Naruto." Replied Naruto as he eyed carefully Gaara. "Let's go Sasuke, we need to train before the exams."

"What was that?" Asked Sasuke once they were away from Gaara and Suna group.

"Children of Yondaime Kazekage and jinchuuriki of Ichibi." Explained Naruto "You know that in me is sealed Kyubi, right?"

"Yes" Nodded Sasuke

"In him is sealed Ichibi, one-tailed tanuki." Explained Naruto "But his seal is fucked up, massively. We need to watch for him as he might snap in the middle of second exam and we both know what will be the effect of it."

"It will be fun." Said Sasuke and stopped when he felt killing intent coming from Naruto.

"It won't be fun." Hissed quietly Naruto "It will be deadly and extremely deadly for that matter. I'm the only one that will be able to get him under control if he is going to release his bijuu."

"Oh" Managed to say Sasuke, still shocked by the amount of killing intent that came from Naruto.

"Yes" Sighed Naruto "We better prepare for him."

o-0-o

Finally the week of break passed and they were ready to try their abilities at tackling chunin exams, first part of which would start in few hours...

o-0-o

 **A/N Part Two – Itachi and Kisame they are only introduced here, but they will be more and more important characters in the story. Something similar to Yamato and Sai in second part, they will be helping Kakashi with training his team and will be replacing him as a leader from time to time.**

 **Also Gaara will be more unstable than he was in the anime at first but it will be fixed in next few chapters, but first he will have his time of glory as an overgrown raccoon that is going to try to attack Konoha.**

 **Many will yell at me about Uchiha brothers and lack of interactions between them, but well. Sasuke is tied like a Christmas gift and can't say a thing and receives full truth from person that he honestly trusts the most and knows that he isn't known for lying to his friends.**

 **Here is my big question, should Naruto take the mantle right after chunin exams or let Tsunade first take it and take it from her once he trains even more and gets experience.**

 **Propably many of you wonder why Naruto wasn't attacked inside of the Senju compound once his heritage was announced. Reason for that is simple, barriers, traps and seals placed all around the compound as well as ANBU constantly patrolling the area for ones stupid enough to attack it. So any attack aimed at it would end with furious response from Hokage who would be pissed off because his Heir was attacked and well, nobody wants to make one of the greatest warriors mad at him.**

 **Reviews time –**

' **Kill yourself, virgin.' – Won't even bother to reply to it. This is one of reasons why I moderate reviews posted by guests. Yet this one slipped through my nets somehow and got automatically approved by I might simply disable guest reviews as I'm bored of such things. Right now is inside of trash can.**

' **Really Good chapter and can't wait to read about the Uchiha Twist! :) Keep up the Great Work man.' – Uchiha Twist will take some time to fully unravel what really happened that night, but you can hear the sound of blade falling onto someone neck. I have holidays and most of them time I either play games or write, so you can expect a lot of chapters in next seven weeks. Although in last two weeks of them I will post them more rarely as I will begin last year of high school and it will be tough.**

 **I'm really happy how popular this story is with over 22 thousand views and plenty of favorites and followers. I would like to get over thousand of favorites or followers by the end of my holidays.**

 **Schedule of posting: Sundays – Hokage's Heir, Tuesday and Thursday – Uchiha Siblings.**


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N – This is official beginning of fifth arc of this story. Chunin exams and they will be propably the longest arc out of all that are published. It will mainly focus on chunin exams, but there is also going to be chapter focused on other things going all around the world. Mainly preparations for attack on Konoha and Kage summit which might be a completely different chapter.**

Finally it was a time for first phase of chunin exams to begin and all genin that wanted to participate in them gathered inside of the Academy as it was the place where they were going to be taken by them. Teams Seven, Nine and Ten walked together as they trained together and decided to work together during the exam to help each other with passing it as Kakashi said it would be less troublesome for them to do it together, than each on their own.

"Genjutsu." Whispered Sasuke when he saw the sign on the doors being a wrong one "They want to weed out weaklings using it."

"Let's go." Nodded Naruto as they walked up the stairs and towards true room where they were supposed to be taking their exam.

"I see that all of you got here." Said Asuma "We want to wish you luck and to have fun during this exam, if one of you didn't come, his whole team would have been dropped out of the exam."

"So this test can be taken only by whole teams?" Asked Ino and received nod in response.

"That's correct. Now have fun inside." With those words Asuma disappeared from the corridor on poof of smoke.

"Let's go." Said Naruto as he walked forward and pushed doors open. Inside of the room were genin from almost every single ninja village, in huge quantities as well. They turned to see who was coming and blasted them with killing intent, which much to their surprise wasn't even felt by those genin.

"Is that supposed to be killing intent?" Asked Sasuke yawning and looking at those genin.

"It feels like a pleasant breeze." Nodded Naruto and replied with his own killing intent, which pushed most of them onto their knees if not into the land of unconscious. There were only several people unaffected by such killing intent, one girl from Taki, one from Kumo, Gaara and one genin from Konoha excluding Konoha Nine that came with Naruto.

"You shouldn't flaunt your strength so much." Said silver haired genin as he moved towards Naruto and his group. "I'm Yakushi Kabuto and I took part in this exam for few times and as such I gathered fair share of data about various shinobi.

"What can you tell us about Senju Naruto?!" Shouted Konoha genin from behind.

"Spoilsport as you already know his name." Said Kabuto and shuffled his deck for a moment "Senju Naruto, he is on a team under Hatake Kakashi and his team-mates are Uchiha Sasuke and Hyuuga Hinata. He completed 10 D-rank, 36 C-rank, 12 B-rank, 24 A-rank and 15 S-rank missions. In terms of power, he has the biggest chakra reserves inside of Konoha, his ninjutsu is believed to be on a level compared to Kage, lack of data about genjutsu, powerful taijustu. He is officially named successor of Hokage-sama and his training was overseen personal by Hokage-sama."

When he said those words attention of everybody in the room was focused on Naruto as that annoying genin just painted a huge bullseye on Naruto back.

"What are those S-rank missions?" Whispered Sasuke so that Naruto could only hear him.

"Part of my training." Explained Naruto "When Itachi-nii was training me, we were usually disappearing into countryside and doing miscellaneous missions so I could pick up some experience. It was mostly he doing them and I watching how he did the job. However I'm more curious how this genin got this data as it is placed on a level where most of jonin don't have access, heck they shouldn't know it actually exists."

"Spy?" Asked Sasuke as he processed data in his mind, analyzing those pieces of data as he was trying to make some sense out of them.

"Most propably." Shrugged off Naruto and made a mental note to leave a message to Ibiki to take care of that pest, there was week of time before the next stage for them to get to Kiri and that team would most propably had an accident during it. When Ibiki wanted to get his hands onto a man he usually got what he wanted to get. Last ones that discovered it were some council members that felt way too safe and discovered that they weren't out of his reach rather painfully.

There was a rather large plume of smoke from which stepped out Morino Ibiki in his usual black clothes, he looked over the room full of genin hopefuls some of which shuddered when they saw him as he was an imposing and terrifying figure. But also inside of Konoha he was rather famous or infamous, depending on point of view and recently he was reason of numerous rumors and gossips. While in other villages there were heard rumors of who he was and that he was lead interrogator at the services of Konohagakure no Sato.

"Shut up morons and get to your seats." Yelled Ibiki as he was satisfied with the level of panic in the room as chunin hopefuls gulped in fear. "I'm Morino Ibiki Head of Konoha Torture and Interrogation as well as proctor of the first stage of this exam. There are several rules that you should know before we start the exam. There are nineteen questions on your sheet and last one will be given to you ten minutes before the end of the exam, you have exactly two hours to finish the test and in total you can earn forty points. For each attempt of cheating you will loose eight points. Which means you have five chances to cheat, after that you are thrown out of the room."

"Next thing to pass the exam you need to score more than zero points and your total team score can't be less than six, if one member of your team is thrown out of the room, rest is also thrown out of it. Now begin."

As Ibiki was speaking chunin that were with him were distributing exam sheets and once he stopped talking it was a time to start writing. Naruto glanced at his sheet, but before he could do much, he felt like he was being possessed by a shadow, which meant Shikamaru was working his magic.

He saw that his hand was writing on its own and saw words written by Shikamaru using it. _'Whole thing is about cheating – Shikamaru.'_ Naruto nodded and focused on a wooden floor of them room, using his feet he channeled some chakra into it and few one-handed seals later near Shikamaru desk appeared tendril made out of wood with message. _'I know, but I don't need to do that – Naruto'_

Once he did so, Naruto glanced at his sheet and took a more detailed look of what was there, some of those questions were so hard that a jonin would struggle to answer them unless he had an advanced knowledge of fuinjutsu or knew the most advanced exercises of nature manipulation and so on. When Naruto saw some of those questions he smiled as he knew answers to most of them as he spent a lot of time studying and training with ANBU or jonin was paying off. He discreetly looked around trying to see what others were doing and he saw that Sasuke was using his Sharingan to copy answers from other people, Hinata and Neji were using their Byakugan to do the same, Shikamaru was writing for his whole team at the same time thanks to his clan shadow jutsu. Rock Lee and Tenten were using her mirrors placed on one of lamps to see answers from other people and were copying them.

Morino Ibiki was content with how the exam was passing so far, one group got his attention as they were rather interesting bunch of people. From what he knew they were cheating in a subtle manner, not a one that was expected from genin or chunin hopeful, but one that was expected from better ninja. Than he glanced at the blonde kid who was heir of Sandaime Hokage and smiled when he saw that the kid was able to answer most of those questions without any cheating or help.

While Naruto was answering those questions, his mind was whirling at full speed and thinking about two things. One that was hidden in small jar which was sealed in a storage seal on his arm. He still was considering what he should do with it as he did for last two years and few months. Next was that spy or genin that was extremely good at data gathering from various talks and sources, he smelled of snakes and caused Naruto to think about certain Sannin that liked bloodlines of various clans and was a notorious S-rank criminal hunted all over the world for his crimes. Also there was that team from Iwa that didn't look like genin, if he was going to guess he would say either jonin or STONE, which was their equivalent of ANBU and were propably here on their council orders to kill him, well it would make the exam interesting. Really interesting with blood flowing left and right as it was going to be a brutal exam with plenty of blood spilled by participants while trying to complete their next task.

After twenty minutes or so passed first people were being thrown out of the room for cheating and when Naruto saw their attempts at cheating for which they were caught he snorted internally as they were so obvious that only idiot wouldn't notice them and those proctors weren't idiots, from what he knew they were one of the best chunin in Konoha and most of them worked as interrogators or in other departments where ability to spot details was needed.

Whole hour passed rather quickly and soon it was the time for the last question, one that would cause the most participants to give up as it was designed to make them break and forfeit. Per se it wasn't difficult to answer, but the risk coming with each choice were extremely high and it was designed to see who would take it.

"Alright maggots, time is up!" Bellowed voice of Ibiki all over the room, getting everybody attention as they looked at him, not knowing what to expect next. "It is a time for the last question. If you fail to answer it, you won't be able to take part in next editions of this exam."

"What?" Yelled genin from Kusa "You can't do that."

"No, I can't." Said Ibiki with nasty grin "But your leaders can and they agreed to do so. So your protest is acknowledged and ignored."

Ibiki looked around for few minutes as he let it sunk into genin and saw that some teams were walking out of the room and number of those that were going to pass was dropping. When five minutes passed he looked around the room and saw that hundred and twenty teams were going to pass.

"You all passed." He said to ones that remained behind.

"What?" Yelled someone from the back rows. "What about the whole test?"

"Whole test was to weed out ones that aren't suited for being a chunin, as data is precious thing and for it many can be killed. As a chunin captain you will be tasked with delivery of important data or with gathering of it, this test was to see if you are suited to do so. Last question was the most important, it was to see if you are ready to take risky choices as such things are very common for chunin when leading a mission." Explained Ibiki

Moments later doors into the room opened and through them walked in three shinobi with Kiri hitai-ate and carrying impressive swords. Those were three out of Kiri no Shinobigata Shinchinin Shu, elite of swordsmen from that village, each of them wielding one of legendary swords.

"We will be proctors of the next stage of this exam." Said middle one "But it will take part in Kiri, so you have three hours to pack and meet us at the north gate of Konoha as from there we will go to the place where next stage will take place. No fighting before and during travel, for that you will have whole week during second stage of exam."

o-0-o

Ibiki looked at the piece of paper on which Naruto solved all questions, but that wasn't the best part about it. He saw small swirl visible on it and when he saw it, he smiled nastily as he knew what it meant. Channeling small amount of chakra into it he saw rows, upon rows of words which were rather interesting to say the least.

 _Yakushi Kabuto is a spy, his teammates too. Propably for Orochimaru, he smells like snakes and from what I managed to see he has a snake summoning tattoo on his hand, hidden under genjutsu, but still there. Also he has too much data for a normal genin as propably three quarters of jonin don't know as much as he does. Team from Iwa is weird, either three jonin or three STONE operatives and propably tasked with killing or kidnapping me, I would say they are here without knowledge of Tsuchikage as he wasn't calling for my blood during Gokage meeting. Team from Suna has unstable jinchuuriki of Ichibi and there is something weird going on with them, watch out for them. Seal seems like it might break at any moment as it is messed up. Team from Oto is more than genin in strength, propably they are chunin and smell too much of snakes, their sensei is Orochimaru in disguise._

When Ibiki finished reading this note he smiled as he knew he had a traitor to catch, talk with Hokage and pass a message to Kiri proctors to be wary of those teams. It looked like this exam just got much more interesting and he didn't mind this kind of interesting as catching spies was his favorite thing to do when bored and this one was served on a silver platter.

o-0-o

"So Kiri" Said Naruto as he and rest of Team Seven sat on the porch of Hyuuga compound. "We can expect a lot of water and mist, a lot of it. You propably remember our mission there."

"Yes" Said Sasuke "It was hard to see anything beyond fifty or so meters and water was everywhere."

"Teams from Kiri will have an advantage." Said Hinata "But we also won't be on a bad position, Byakugan and Sharingan can penetrate that mist and see quite clearly through it."

"Certainly we will be in better position than teams from Suna or Iwa." Said Naruto "Pack for I would say two weeks of fighting. We might use a lot of weapons there as it is better to spent weapons than get injured or killed."

"You expect heavy fighting?" Asked Sasuke who wouldn't mind an opportunity to fight some genin from other villages. Training with Naruto and Itachi made his a lot stronger than he was and he was a little afraid of what his brother and Naruto were able to do when fighting together. He saw them training together and it was a scary thing as he saw combination jutsu being launched without any words spoken about what jutsu they were going to use.

"Yes" Said Naruto "Hundred and twenty teams and small area. Team will be almost on other team, we need to be careful, really careful with what and how we are doing it. Hinata can you talk with Neji about keeping our alliance going? I will do the same with Shikamaru as I need to track down Shikaku and ask him something."

"Yes" Said Hinata and Naruto nodded.

"I will get some traps and whole lot of projectiles." Said Sasuke "Propably few hundred pieces of each, kunai and normal shuriken and few dozens of Fuma shuriken."

"So meet in two hours where?" Asked Naruto looking at his teammates "I would like to plan our strategy with those teams."

"Senju compound?" Suggested Hinata "It's most secure one and least amount of spies there, here there are spies everywhere. Uchiha one would look suspicious and could get a lot of attention."

"Yes" Nodded Sasuke

"Okay" Said Naruto "I will need to add you into security placed around it so you can freely go in and out as there are several places with extremely high security and you don't want to trigger those things."

o-0-o

Naruto walked through the hallways of Senju compound heading towards part of it where was library as he wanted to retrieve certain thing from it. One that belonged to his great grandfather Senju Tobirama, Raijin no Ken. He walked through a maze of corridors and hallways of compound until he found the room that he wanted to find. That is library, which was one of his favorite place inside of this compound. He pressed his palm against the doors and locks hidden in them disengaged, allowing him passage into the room. Inside of it on a small shelf on the opposite corner of it was laying that sword, Naruto gripped familiar form of hilt of it and when he channeled some chakra into it blade sprung alive and he was holding sword with a blade of over thirty inches long and glowing gold from chakra coursing through it. It was traditional weapon of heirs of Senju clan until it was stolen by Rokusho Aoi and now it was a time for him to continue the tradition after brief break.

" _It is finally a time for me to fully claim my heritage."_ Naruto thought as he attached hilt of this sword to his belt. Previously he wasn't using it so that he wouldn't get even bigger bullseye on his back, but now cats were out of the bag and he could fully use his heritage. But with Mokuton abilities he would wait until third stage as they were going to be his trump card, unless forced to go against jinchuuriki during earlier stages of the exam. For which chance was slim as jinchuuriki were going to avoid each other, not to cause fights that were going to level whole area as every fight between the two of them were destructive as bijuu didn't like losing to each other and any issues with their hosts weren't important. More important was winning with other bijuu.

When Naruto walked out of the room and found rest of his friends, he noticed that they were looking at the blade hanging from his belt as if it shouldn't be there. "What is going on?" Naruto asked a little annoyed by those looks.

"Nothing, I just can't believe that you have Raijin no Ken." Shikamaru explained

"It's family heirloom so I can use it." Shrugged off Naruto "And I found it during one of team missions. So what plan do you propose for this exam?"

"A lot depends on what type of objective we will be given." Said Shikamaru "But generally I would say that we should try to form one group as soon as possible and avoid bigger groups of enemies. Especially Kiri as they will be knowing the ground way better than we do and they will have a huge advantage because of that."

"What about other Konoha genin teams that would like to join us?" Asked Sasuke "In my opinion they will just slow us down and would be a nuisance. Also bigger group will get even more attention and that isn't the best thing in the area where we don't know the terrain."

"As I don't like to agree with you, Sasuke." Said Naruto looking at the Uchiha "I agree on this one, they are going to be a nuisance and are going to slow us down. Also even nine people will get quite a lot of attention and we don't want more than necessary."

"True" Said Shikamaru "Especially considering who is in our group, excluding Lee, Tenten and Neji every single other person is heir of his or her clan. But also Naruto on his own is giant attention magnes."

"So no allies?" Asked Tenten, just to be sure as so far it was obvious that they didn't want more allies than ones that were seating here.

"No allies." Said Shikamaru and glanced at clock that was hanging on one of the walls. "We better get going as we don't have too much time."

o-0-o

Three hours after the end of the first stage of the exam in front of gates of Konoha were gathered participants of it that passed it as well as their guides and proctors for second stage of the exam.

"Some rules first." Said Aoi getting everybody attention "No fights during travel, no arguments and no insulting each other. For that you will have time later. We have permission from your Kage to use lethal force to calm you down so you really don't want to test us."

"Hai" Said everybody and Aoi nodded approvingly. "Konoha and Kiri genin will go with Kushimaru, Iwa, Suna and Kumo with Raiga, while rest will go with me."

"So that is Nuibari." Said Naruto when he saw sword on Kushimaru back "Compared to Samehada doesn't look that impressive."

"You saw Samehada and survived encounter with Kisame?" Asked Kushimaru when he heard that comment "You were lucky as Kisame was the most dangerous out of this generation."

"I saw it and survived encounter with him." Said Naruto

"Impressive." Said Kushimaru and Naruto nodded as he didn't want to show what he truly knew about Kisame. Only selected few in both villages knew who truly Kisame was, that he was a spy used by Jiraiya-sama to gather data on Akatsuki.

o-0-o

"Why do you look like a cat that just eaten a canary?" Asked Anko when she saw quite happy Ibiki entering T&I and holding a piece of paper.

"Read this" Only said Ibiki and showed her one of tests from chunin exam.

"There is nothing." Said Anko until he pointed at the swirl and she channeled some chakra into it revealing lines upon lines of text. "Okay, that is interesting little note. Who wrote it? "

"Senju Naruto, apparently he was bored during exam." Said Ibiki "I knew he was good as I read some reports about him, but I never suspected him to be that good."

"So we have spies to catch and Hokage-sama to inform about it." Said Anko as she looked at that piece of paper reading and thinking how to do so.

"Aye" Nodded Ibiki

o-0-o

After three days of travel they were finally in front of large fence behind which was area where second stage of the exam would take place. It was a large training ground where were forests, plains, marshes, few small rivers and sea. It didn't look too dangerous and compared to Konoha Forty-four it was almost pleasant.

"Listen up!" Said Aoi getting their attention "Each team will receive one scroll and will need to get second part. You have exactly one hundred and sixty-eight hours to complete this task or simply speaking seven days. You will be admitted into the area in three teams and when name of your team is called you may choose with whom you wish to enter or they will be drawn at random. You have fifteen minutes to decide with whom you want to be at the gate, once you decide come forward. When all teams will be paired we will begin the exam, no sooner or later."

Naruto looked at Shikamaru and Neji who lightly nodded and those three Konoha teams walked towards booth in which were sitting chunin responsible for assigning gates. They looked at them and later at the list, comparing photos of them with those that they had with the least and when they were satisfied they nodded.

"So Teams Kakashi, Gai and Asuma from Konoha." Spoke one of them and received nod in response "Here are your scrolls, you got the gate number thirteen."

Naruto grabbed his team scroll while Neji and Shikamaru for their respective teams and after few minutes of walk they arrived in front of gate thirteen and by the looks of it they started in front of large marsh. But if Neji and Hinata were right behind it was some sort of cave, which was a good thing for them, they could have a relatively safe and dry place to stay during the exam.

"When we will be moving towards that cave we will use same formation we used before." Said Shikamaru and looked at the rest of people who nodded "What scrolls we need?"

"Three times Heaven, so we need Earth." Said Naruto

o-0-o

When last few seconds were left before the beginning of this stage of the exam, Naruto and his friends stood ready in front of their gate and awaited the signal to begin. When it was fired and gates sprung open they charged right into the forest. Same as did all other participants and the game of life and death started.

"Genin team from Ame." Said Neji as he watched the area with his Byakugan "Three hundred meters to our right, approaching fast."

"Okay" Nodded Shikamaru and looked at Naruto "You will deal with them?"

"Yes" Said our favorite blonde as he grabbed hilt of Raijin no Ken and ran towards that team from Ame. He was going to make a short work of them, they wouldn't even know what the hell happened to them as they were going to be killed swiftly and brutally.

o-0-o

Ame team was running away from their gate and deeper into the forests of the training ground so that they could start hunting for the scroll that they needed. However they were unaware that they were a prey for Naruto who was also hunting in the area and wanted to get the scroll he needed as soon as possible.

They landed on a small clearing when Naruto managed to catch up to them and appeared on the branch above. In his hand Raijin no Ken.

"Looks like we are lucky. Sole Konoha scum." Said one of them pointing at Naruto, who only smirked when they thought that he was alone and easy to beat, they were going to pay for underestimating him, they were going to pay a lot.

"Are you so sure that you are lucky?" Asked Naruto as he jumped down and charged at those Ame genin, before first one of them could blink one of them was missing his head and from his neck erupted stream of hot blood that hit everybody in his proximity. And Naruto appeared behind him, on the blade of his sword visible droplets of blood and grim expression on his face.

"Who are you?" Asked one of them moving away from Naruto in fear as he just killed the strongest one of their team without any problems. Like he wasn't even a challenge for him, just an annoyance and a pest that needed to be taken care of.

"One of those so called Konoha scum." Coldly said Naruto as he watched them "Give me your scroll and you can live, if not you will join your friend."

"Give him the scroll." Said one of Ame genin looking at his team-mate as they watched blood slowly pouring out of the corpse of their last team-mate and genin from Konoha watching them and considering what was a better choice. Kill them or ask the for a scroll.

"Here it is." Weakly said genin as he handed Naruto scroll of Earth.

"Thanks" Said Naruto as he grabbed it and disappeared to join the rest of his group as he had a bad feelings that something was going to happen to them and that he was the only one that could deal with it. It was extremely malicious and evil chakra which meant not many people, as such chakra was hard to get, even harder to get was one that managed to impress Kyubi. Who had extremely potent and malicious chakra on his own and saw a fair share of it during his life.

o-0-o

" _Fuuton – Daitoppa"_ Was heard all over the clearing as powerful gust of wind impacted teams Seven, Nine and Ten scattering them all over the area, while some of them managed to stand. It was way more powerful than normal genin should be able to use as amount of chakra pushed into it was in the middle of chunin levels.

"That's not a normal genin." Said Sasuke as he tightly gripped hilt of his katana "Whoever did this has a lot of chakra and knows how to use it."

"You are quite correct, Sasuke-kun." Said a person wearing Kusa hitai-ate as she appeared at the edge of it. She was blasting so strong killing intent that it was almost impossible to breath. If felt unnatural, Sasuke saw killing intent emitted by Naruto and he was somewhat prepared for it, but the rest of their group simply laid on the ground and tried to stay conscious and not to vomit. As that person was exuding so much of it that it was almost comparable with one that was emitted by jinchuuriki when they were furious, which was an achievement.

o-0-o

Naruto was leaping from branch to branch as he was running through a chain of handseals for one of the most well known jutsu.

" _Kuchiyose no Jutsu"_ He shouted as he slammed his palm onto the tree trunk nearby and from the plume appeared Monkey King Enma.

"What is it, Naruto-dono?" Asked monkey looking at his summoner.

"I need help, Enma." Said Naruto as he looked at what he summoned _"Henge: Kongōnyoi"_

"As you wish, Naruto-dono." Said Enma changing on fly into his Adamantine Staff form.

"Can you tell me to whom belongs that chakra?" Asked Naruto as he was releasing his own seals to get full power available to him during the battle.

"Give me a moment." Said Enma as he sniffed the air "Wayward student of Hiruzen, Orochimaru."

"Lovely." Said Naruto as he hurried to get there faster, as he easily guessed the reason for the presence of this stupid snake here. To mark Sasuke with his Cursed Mark of Heaven, which was an annoying hickey.

o-0-o

Orochimaru was moving towards Sasuke when from the sky above him appeared large black pillar that crashed into the position where he was. Forcing him to madly dodge it as it almost smashed him into multiple pieces and killed on the spot. Orochimaru recognized it as he saw his sensei using it multiple times and knew it was a rather dangerous thing.

"Orochimaru" Said Naruto when he landed on the ground, Adamantine Staff in his hand "Get away from my team or I will be forced to remove you out of here using force and you don't want to see that. If I'm right your spy told you what I can do."

"Naruto-kun." Said Orochimaru licking his lips with excitement.

"I don't think so." Shouted Naruto as he charged at Orochimaru twirling the staff in his hand and starting a flurry of attacks aimed at Hebi-teme forcing him to weave around them as he knew that one hit with it and Enma would latch onto him, not allowing him to escape.

"It seems that you were trained well." Said Orochimaru as he blocked strike with that staff and used it to throw Naruto into the tree behind him.

"When you train with ANBU you tend to learn quite a lot of things." Said Naruto as he used quick Kawarimi to get in front of Orochimaru, fist already glowing with chakra, when it hit Orochimaru it sent him flying into the tree behind him, where he created quite a large crater as he impacted it. He staggered out of it and opened his mouth wide enough to allow him to regurgitate another body. "You should be dead by now, there was enough chakra to snap your neck and spine in dozen or so places."

"You see." Said Orochimaru as he regurgitated another body out of his mouth "I learned quite a few jutsu since I left Konoha."

"No wonder that you were banned from the post of Yondaime Hokage." Said Naruto as he watched with disgust what Orochimaru was doing. "I think there is no need for holding back."

As Naruto said those words he started flashing through handseals and when he was done with them, he shouted _"Suiton – Suiryudan"_ and in front of him formed large dragon made out of water that charged at Orochimaru.

When Orochimaru saw that dragon his eyes narrowed and he almost immediately replied with his own jutsu " _Doton – Doryuheki_ " creating wall made out of mud in front of himself.

Naruto didn't give Orochimaru time to think as he almost immediately after previous attack made clone of himself and started flashing through another chains of seals. _"Katon – Karyūdan!"_ Yelled clone, while original body yelled _"Doton – Doryūdan!"_ In front of them formed large dragon made out of mud that started spitting out balls out it that charged at Orochimaru, while clone exhaled a stream of fire that coated them in it and increased their destructive power as they charged straight at Orochimaru, easily punching holes in the wall that was protecting him and impacting his body, which turned into mud.

When Naruto saw that Orochimaru turned into mud he looked around and grabbed Enma as he knew that this Sannin used those jutsu when he wanted to surprise his enemy and he was simply hiding in the ground.

"It seems that he forgot about famous trait of Senju clan." Chuckled Naruto when he spotted rogue Sannin hiding underground. He channeled as much chakra as possible into sole tenketsu in his hand and slammed it into the ground, releasing it the moment it struck home. When it happened through the whole clearing passed small earthquake as bits and pieces of ground started flying in all directions revealing shocked Orochimaru.

 **A/N Part Two:**

 **Reviews:**

" **for the tsunade or naruto taking the hat up i would say have tsunade take the position but, have naruto be a part time hokage every now and again he would switch with her and get to experience what the position feels like from assigning missions to doing a few bits of light paperwork, also attending some council meetings and etc. meting some dignitary's and important people and testing him with small safe negotiations and so on" – This is propably a scenario I will choose, but nothing is sure as I might have an idea or two, also remember that he is young and young rulers aren't liked. I could name maybe to kings that had real power when they were younger than fourteen or so, rest started exercising real control over their realm when they were over fourteen or sixteen.**

" **Nice one. Sasuke's such a chump in this story. Hope 4 more soon." – He will change some more during next few months or years. Compared to Naruto he emotionally is in way worse position as while Naruto wasn't attending Academy he spent some time with Ino-Shika-Cho trio children so he has much healthier psyche that Sasuke, who is getting better, but one can snap at moment notice. Look at Mad-King from A song of Ice and Fire, before Duskendale he was almost completely sane, after that event he snapped and turned into a madman.**

" **great update, i think its best to make naruto takes the hat after the chunnin exam amd reveal his true heritage and bloodline limit. update soon." – His heritage and bloodline officially are a secret, but more than a dozen of man suspect a thing or two. Most of Kage seen him and remember that Sandaime Tsuchikage remembers times of Shodaime and Nidaime Hokage so he can easily add couple of missing pieces and figure out the rest. Also rest of Kage saw Yondaime Hokage and as such figuring out that Naruto is his son isn't a hard thing for them, they won't do a thing as they don't want another war, but they aren't stupid or blind. If you are a Kage you quickly learn the game of politics and you can see a lot of things, even hidden behind a veil or two.**

" **so sasuke still wants to kill itachi? the exam will be much fun with the more crazy gaara!" – Kill nope, but he needs to cope with what happened and that will take him some time.**

 **Gaara is an interesting subject and he might find himself with a dagger or knife buried in his neck or not. His fate is uncertain as you will see why.**

" **It would be awesome if Naruto and Hinata are paired together in this story" – For Christ sake, they are children, let them live. Pairings will appear later when they will be around fifteen or so, earlier nope.**

" **Overall very enjoyable read (grammar issues aren't that big of a deal. Doesn't make the story unreadable.)**

 **Want to touch on the whole Sakura manipulation situation. In the end, there are really only 3 canon characters introduced anywhere near this portion of the story who could pull something like that off. Think about this for a second people. Who HAVEN'T we seen in the story yet who happens to be a: REALLY REALLY good at genjutsu who b: would have been team 8's jounin sensei?**

 **Ok, I kind of gave it away" – Who said that it was a powerful genjutsu? Because I don't remember anybody saying such thing, also if Ibiki or Inoichi suspected her, she would be in T &I in matter of seconds and if she would manage to run away from Konoha she would have a bounty on her head. And there are more than dozen of ninja that would happily drag her to Konoha for several million ryo. **

**Not to mention that she is aligned with Hyuuga clan, but who knows, maybe there is a part of Hyuuga clan that wants to play against Hiashi and Naruto, trying to get more power for themselves. Kami and I only know those answers.**

 **Also sometimes the simplest solution is the best, why would you use genjutsu when telling simple lies one by one would do the trick, it takes time but considering that they had few years, there was more than enough of it to make her believe in it.**

 **Remember that Konoha is a nest full of various vipers, cobras and other snakes, each playing for his or her own goal. Remember who is famous for playing from shadows and who doesn't like Sandaime Hokage for his belief in Hi no Ishi.**

 **I think that is enough of leads for you to give you more than dozen of trails, most of them false, but maybe one of you will find true one.**

 **Chunin exams rant:**

 **They will be hellishly dangerous and blood will be spilled in huge quantities, even without outside help and there are going to be several of them thrown into it. Also the task which they got is let's say just a first part of it and second part has something in common with a nickname earned by host of it** _ **Chigiri no Sato.**_ **What it will be I won't tell you, but out of sixty teams that should pass it. Only small percentage of them will pass, how small will be a surprise, but you will see a glimpse of what Itachi and Naruto are able to do, but Naruto will be working with Sasuke to survive.**

 **Akatsuki composition – Deidara, Sasori, Zetsu, Hidan, Kakuzu, Pain, Konan**

 **They won't be getting new members any time soon as rings that were received by Itachi and Kisame are safely locked in one of the most guarded vaults in Konoha and Snake Sannin also doesn't want to give away his, which is safely hidden in one of his hideouts.**


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N – Sorry about that cliffhanger, but I couldn't let it pass...**

"What an inhuman strength." Muttered shocked Orochimaru when he saw amount of damage caused by one punch made by Naruto, it reminded him about his team-mate Tsunade and it looked that he also knew inhuman strength of his clan and that was example of this as he caused an earthquake on the similar scale as she was able to do. He knew that he needed to play serious or Naruto was going to bury him alive with one of those attacks and getting close to Sasuke-kun was getting harder and harder.

Orochimaru leaped out of the hole in the ground and charged at Naruto who replied with his own attack and they crashed in the middle of the clearing, exchanging strikes which were strong enough to shatter bones and kill on the spot if someone didn't block or dodge them. Orochimaru managed to get a lucky shot and threw Naruto into the tree behind him, thus knocking him out cold from the sheer impact into the tree and force that was used to do so, before he could regain consciousness he leaped at Sasuke and bit him in the neck as he knew that what any longer he was going to stay he would get attention of ANBU and Sharks that were patrolling the area of the exam. After he marked Sasuke he disappeared as not to get even more attention as one furious Senju was enough for him.

Naruto groaned as he got up and looked around trying to get his nerves under control as he was a little shaken by that encounter with Orochimaru, he looked in direction of his friends and saw that Sasuke was clutching his neck, while he was supported by Chouji and Lee, which meant that he got bitten and that this snake got away.

"We need to find a shelter as soon as possible." He said as he landed in front of Sasuke and took a look at that seal "I have one of scrolls, but this seal is a bigger problem. I know what it is doing and I know how to fix that, but we need shelter."

"Neji where is that cave?" Asked Shikamaru looking at older Hyuuga

"Nearby." Said Neji once he activated his Byakugan and took look around.

"Good" Nodded Shikamaru "Chouji carry Sasuke, Neji lead us there. We will plan more once we are there and I want some answers from you, Naruto."

"Hai" Nodded Naruto scratching back of his head sheepishly as he knew that he couldn't avoid those questions. As they were going to that cave he grabbed his staff which was thrown into the tree during their fight with Orochimaru and Enma wasn't too happy about that. They were moving through the forest in hurry as they weren't in shape for fighting anybody any time soon as they had wounded and needed some rest.

They landed in front of cave that was hidden from view by the roots of ancient tree that was hiding it quite well and would make spotting them almost impossible and they were going to he quite safe inside of it or at least should be quite safe inside of it. As nobody sane would look for a cave here out of all places.

"It looks good." Said Shikamaru as he saw it "Gather some wood for a small fire and get inside, do not leave any traces outside that we are here. Hinata, Naruto I want you to hunt for some food at later time, but now we need to secure it."

"Hai" Nodded other genin and started moving inside of this cave so that they could rest, while some of them gathered smaller pieces of woods and sticks for a fire so that they could see something inside of it and had a place to prepare something to eat.

o-0-o

"I want answers now." Said Shikamaru looking at Naruto, who was staring at the seal on Sasuke neck. "I know you for few years and I know when you are hiding something and I know that you are doing it right now."

"That man that attacked us it was Orochimaru." Said Naruto "He is after Sharingan and that seal he left on Sasuke is his Cursed Mark, propably Cursed Mark of Heaven if I'm right. It is dangerous thing and it needs to be sealed as soon as possible. I wouldn't be surprised if we were going to be attacked by Oto genin that will be here to test Sasuke in the morning."

"So we can expect unwanted guests." Muttered Shikamaru and looked at the forest and marsh visible outside of their hide out. "Troublesome, two man watches."

"But that isn't the biggest issue." Said Naruto and pointed at the seal visible on Sasuke neck "I will seal it now as I have an idea how to do that, but it is only temporary solution until I will get Ero-sennin or Hokage to take a look at this. Or get him to the sealing room underneath Senju compound as it is designed for dealing with such seals."

Shikamaru nodded and moved away as Naruto started drawing signs on the ground that were centered around that seal on Sasuke neck, when he watched them he recognized some and they looked like they were being connected with binding, imprisoning and tying things. He saw the most basic seals in action, but never had a time to see more advanced ones being used and it seemed this one was one of those more advanced ones.

When Naruto finished drawing all of those necessary signs around Sasuke he pressed his hand against that seal and using second did a chain of seals, when he did all of them he said _"Fuja Hoin"_ and watched as those signs formed a tight circles around those three tomoe that were Cursed Mark of Heaven. Effectively trapping the evil influence inside of it, but there was one huge drawback of it, it was connected to a mind and emotions of person that was bearing the seal and thus it wasn't the best option.

"It is going to be a long day." Said Shikamaru as he looked at the limp form of Sasuke with that seal "We need scrolls and we have one team member incapacitated."

"I'm also tired." Said Naruto before he crashed against one of the walls and passed out from exhaustion.

"Just wonderful." Said Shikamaru when he saw one more member passing out. "What are we going to do?" He asked looking at rest of those teams.

"I would say wait." Said Neji "We would need to leave few people to protect them and we don't really have anybody to hunt for scrolls."

"We need rest." Added Ino "And the day isn't the best time for hunting for scrolls."

"Also we need to secure our hideout." Said Tenten as she unsealed large quantities of weapons and equipment to make traps. "I will need someone help to do that as on my own I won't be able to place enough of them."

"Okay" Said Shikamaru and sighed, it was so troublesome, but it needed to be done. "Tenten, Ino trap all approaches to our hideout. Rest of us will watch for any enemies, from what I know Naruto will wake up in next few hours or so."

Genin nodded and accepted that Shikamaru was in charge now as he had some sort of idea and plan to follow, they knew that until Sasuke or Naruto were awake their main force was incapacitated and without them they weren't able to truly hunt for scrolls. Also they needed to protect their camp fiercely as someone could just snuck up on them and murder those two.

o-0-o

"What is going on?" Weakly asked Naruto as he woke up few hours later when sun was hiding behind horizon and night was descending onto training ground. He felt like he slept too much time and growling that he heard in the back of his mind confirmed it. His guest seemed rather unhappy and wasn't letting him forgive that.

"You sealed that weird seal on Sasuke and passed out." Said Shikamaru "You were unconscious for something like six or seven hours, we didn't check when exactly you lost your consciousness."

"Shut up furball" Mumbled Naruto and looked around, they were in that cave with a smile fire in the middle of it and most of them sitting around it or near the entrance to it. "Not a bad place, so what is the plan?"

"Why me?" Asked Shikamaru

"Lemme think." Said Naruto as he moved to more comfortable position "You are genius and son of jonin commander. Need more reasons?"

"Fine" Sighed Shikamaru as he fought hard not to yawn "We need two scrolls of Earth to finish this part of the exam and it is annoying. I suggest we use one three man team to hunt, while rest stays in our cave and protect it."

"Who would you propose to go hunting?" Asked Naruto as he leaned closer, as did the rest of their group. He had in mind several options ready as he knew what would be the best mix of them for this mission, but he usually preferred leaving planning to Nara.

"It is troublesome, but the best team would be Naruto, me and Hinata or Neji." Sighed Shikamaru "Sasuke is out cold and he will stay such for some time. So we need to plan without taking him into account."

"What about rest of us?" Asked Ino, glaring at her team-mate and friend.

"You will guard our base." Simply said Shikamaru "Sasuke is useless right now and someone needs to stay and protect him. Also too big of a group would got too much attention. There is a reason, why teams are between three and five man, no more. Bigger group is easier to see, hear and spot."

"So once it is dark we go?" Asked Naruto

Shikamaru only nodded as the night was the safest time for hunting. "Aye, I hope that we will be able to ambush couple of teams."

o-0-o

Mitarashi Anko nodded in approval as she looked around control center of this stage of exam, it looked solid and was manned by mixed team from Konoha and Kiri. She was one in charge of Konoha team, while Ao was one in charge of Kiri team. It was a large room with a sensing sphere in the middle of it and with screens that showed images from various cameras set all around the area to let them follow participants inside of it. Although now they couldn't see much through them as it was beginning of night of the first day of the exam.

"How is it going?" Asked Anko as she looked at Ao

"First team already completed the task." He said "They did that in I believe ninety minutes."

"They broke previous records by quite a lot." Said Anko when she heard that "Previous one was around four hours. Who are they?"

"Team from Suna, one about which is issued warning to watch out for them." Said Ao and answered unasked question. "One with jinchuuriki of Ichibi, I talked with Kumo team sensei as he is jinchuuriki of Hachibi and he said that he will be nearby to control that kid if he will snap and go on a killing spree."

"Good" Nodded Anko "So now waiting for them to finish. I wonder how many will pass."

"Not many as right after midnight first challenge is going to be unleashed on them." Said Ao "Raiga, Kushimaru, Zabuza and Mangetsu they will hunt ones that are stupid or will challenge them. Highest priority have teams from smaller villages and Suna as you passed us a word to expect troubles from them, but if they will stumble upon other teams they will also attack."

"Seems interesting." Smiled Anko as she enjoyed bloodshed and this was looking quite nicely. "So what surprise you have for tomorrow midnight?"

"You will see." Only replied Ao as it was going to be a surprise. There were certain things about this training field that not many knew and they were going to use them to full effect during this exam. "But you will certainly enjoy it, genins inside not so much, also there is that second part of this stage."

o-0-o

Night was fast approaching and most of teams were preparing for it and were looking for suitable places for their camps or were securing ones, while some of them were preparing for night of hunting and killing. Konoha Nine was one of those groups as they were quietly leaving cave which was their base and started the hunt for missing scrolls.

"Neji look for possible teams that we can attack." Said Shikamaru, as he, Naruto and Neji stood on the branch of the tree under which was their hideout and were considering their options. They didn't have many as they needed those scrolls and they needed to attack other teams to get them. "Naruto and I will be taking care of enemies that will try to attack you."

"Hai" Nodded older Hyuuga as he jumped off the tree, followed by rest of his group ans ran towards drier part of the forest as currently they were on the border of marshes and delving there wasn't the safest idea, especially in the middle of a night as they could find themselves trapped in quicksand and there was no escape from it. Only using something to perform _Kawarimi_ with it, but at night it was rather hard thing to do. "There is team from Kusa five hundred meters to our right, they seemed to be weaker than they should be."

"They were fighting someone?" Suggested Naruto looking at Shikamaru

"Most probably." Nodded Nara and looked at Neji "Lead us there."

"Okay" Replied Hyuuga and changed direction in which he was running, heading straight for that camp. After few minutes of jumping from branch to branch, they landed on one that was overlooking camp made by those genin from Kusa. It was in stupid place as it was in the open and guard was looking into the fire, which was a suicide as his night vision was nonexistent because of that.

"Idiots" Muttered Naruto when he saw that camp, which got him weird looks from other two members of his group "They don't have guards and traps which around this place are shoddy and that is putting it lightly. Any of you wants to get it done?"

"No" Shook his head Shikamaru, while Neji simply stood there.

"I guess I will need to do this." Sighed Naruto and took out three kunai from holster on his leg. He aimed them carefully and he threw them. They hit all of those Kusa ninja into back of their necks, killing them on the spot. After that he jumped onto the ground and searched their pouches, until he found scroll that they had. It was one that they needed, which meant that they needed to find just one more scroll of Earth to get this task done, which seemed like an easy task. And had whole six days to get it done, which was plenty of time. However once Naruto returned back to his group he tensed as he sensed powerful source of chakra quickly approaching.

"What is it?" Asked Shikamaru when he noticed how nervous was Naruto and that his friend grasped hilt of Raijin no Ken, which started glowing.

"Run for our hideout." Said quickly Naruto as his mind went into overdrive, preparing for a fight up ahead. "There is a hunter here that is hunting genin or scaring genin with sensory abilities. He is jonin level and while I have much more chakra, he has more combat experience, which means that he will propably win. I will slow him down." As Naruto was saying those words around him appeared eleven clones, four of which henged into Shikamaru, while four into Neji. Without a word three sets of them ran in completely different directions to give that hunter more targets and to distract him.

Shikamaru nodded and motioned for Neji to follow him as he knew that Naruto would be mostly fine as he knew how powerful his blonde friend really was. While they were running for hideout Naruto received first batch of memories from his clones as one of them was slaughtered by that hunter. From what he saw he was using giant sword that looked more like a butcher knife than a sword.

"So Momochi Zabuza it is." Quietly said Naruto as he decided to finally engage that hunter, which was chasing second batch of Naruto's clones which were leading him straight towards Naruto who was waiting for him to get close. He knew that Zabuza didn't know his true level of power, which meant that if he was going to show a lot of power Zabuza might get more cautious and let him escape.

o-0-o

Momochi Zabuza wasn't a happy ninja, he expected to simply ambush those genin yet only he managed to cleave in half three clones which dared to blow up in front of him and now he was chasing something that looked like a second set of them and they were leading him Kami only knew where. He noticed as they were passing under wide branch and when he was passing under it his senses went into overdrive as he felt blade coming down onto him from above.

Kubikiribotcho flew almost on its own and blocked that blade which came from above, when he saw who was it he managed to see a mop of blonde hair and by that person was held blade that was a legend among all swordsman and masters of blade from various countries and villages, blade that was used only by heirs to Senju clan. Raijin no Ken, gift for Senju clan from their cousins Uzumaki clan forged by them with heavy usage of chakra and seals, blade of it was the best example of it as it was shortening or expanding depending on user wish and amount of chakra pushed into it.

"So Heir to Senju." Said Zabuza as he pushed user of that blade backwards and watched him looking at him and preparing for duel.

"Yes" Nodded Naruto and in reply said "Momochi Zabuza, wielder of Kubikiribotcho, although Butcher knife suits it better."

"Brat" Growled Zabuza as he looked at genin that insulted one of seven blades "Be careful to whom you speak."

"Or what?" Asked amused Naruto as he prepared for beginning of fight. Zabuza didn't say a thing and only jumped at Naruto gigantic blade held in both hands and forced Naruto to use his second hand to support Raijin as he blocked that powerful attack. It didn't look good as he was trying to block an attack from bigger and stronger ninja and he needed a plan and a way of escape ASAP or he wasn't going to come out of it alive.

Naruto looked around and noticed his clones that were still running away from Zabuza, when he saw them on his face appeared nasty smirk. Without any seals he made a clone of himself that appeared below the branch and walked to stay behind Zabuza, when it was there Naruto ordered it to explode, which scorched Zabuza back and threw him off balance and let Naruto quickly slip out of the trap. He was a little singed and smelled of burned flesh, but it was a better fate than being split into two halves by that knife in Zabuza hand.

o-0-o

"Where is Naruto-kun?" Asked Hinata when Neji and Shikamaru returned to their hideout, while trying to catch their breath.

"He said he is going to delay whoever was attacking us." Said Shikamaru and looked into the night where he saw a bright flash of light in one spot. Which looked like some sort of explosion and he knew that Naruto liked to use explosions as distractions or as a ways to get away from a trap. "He is coming."

Moments later in the entrance appeared Naruto with tips of his hairs singed and with face covered in dried blood and soot, which was a weird mix of things. He was also rather scared or exhausted. "It was Momochi Zabuza who was hunting in the area. I managed to escape him." Said Naruto as he was catching his breath "We should be safe, he got direct hit from my _Bunshin Daibakuha_. Which means he is looking around for more explosives or went somewhere else looking for easier prey."

"We have one more scroll." Said Shikamaru "We need to find one more, but night isn't the safest time for hunting as we almost got killed by Zabuza. Let sleep and in the morning we will think, two man watches. Hinata and Chouji first one, next Neji and Ino, and the last one will be me and Naruto."

o-0-o

"They said those brats weren't dangerous." Fumed Zabuza as he looked around the place where he landed, that brat was a clever little one and he completely disappeared into the night, which meant that tracking him was a hard thing. Also there were also those explosives of his, Kami only knew how many more of them were in the area and spotting them without any good source of light was right impossible. That explosion which allowed him to escape also hurt a lot and it left couple of nasty wounds that were bleeding and weakened him. There was no point in further hunting as he could get killed by next clever team. He put his sword back into it proper place and headed for control center knowing well that he would be mostly safe as he was passing there. Nobody would attack him as his chakra was still as potent as it used to be.

Aftee fifteen minutes of jog Zabuza finally got to the base and when he entered the room where were hunters he received weird looks as he was leaving a trail of blood as he walked and he was a little burned and singed.

"What the hell happened to you?" Asked Raiga

"Little clever brat that loves his explosives." Managed to say Zabuza as he started bandaging those wounds. "He somehow got a note onto my back and activated it there. While I was falling onto the ground he completely disappeared into the night."

o-0-o

When the dawn descended onto the training ground it was quiet, almost too quiet as no animals were emitting any noises, it looked like it was a desert, but in truth it was full of life, but hunters that were here knew importance of being silent and careful as being loud and obnoxious was a sure way to die at the hands of other. One of such groups ventured through the bushes covering the ground as they were looking for Sasuke, unaware that they were easily spotted by people from Sasuke's team and only waited for them to get closer and say what they wanted before killing them.

"Where is Sasuke?!" Yelled one of them when he stood on the clearing right in front of the entrance to cave where was Sasuke.

"Safe" Replied Naruto as he walked out of the cave, in his hand Raijin no Ken "And you need to get past me to get to him."

"Fine" Said Zaku as he charged at Naruto and did some sort of attack using sound as a medium of it. Naruto easily sensed that it was coming and jumped out of the way of it, while at the same time trying to get closer to those Oto genin. He managed to avoid several more attacks and when he was finally in range of his own attacks. With one hand he grabbed arm of kunoichi of that team, thus locking her in place and at the same time he kicked her in her chest, strong enough to break her spine in multiple places, due to amount of chakra in that kick. Which made her useless in that fight and she was going to die soon, after dealing with kunoichi Naruto looked at other two genin and threw body of that kunoichi at them.

They dodged it, yet they didn't spot Naruto who used it as a distraction and crashed into one that jumped to the right. He didn't have too much time to react as moments after that crash, Naruto plunged his sword into chest of his enemy killing him where he stood. Which caused huge eruption of blood from that wound which splattered all over Naruto armor and on the ground and tree behind Oto genin.

"Give me your scroll or I will kill you." Said Naruto looking at the remaining member of Oto team, who slowly nodded and indicated genin, which was still impaled on Raijin no Ken. Naruto nodded and quickly checked pouch on the belt of dead genin and found scroll that he wanted. "Scram!"

When he said those words Oto genin disappeared from his view as he knew that Naruto could kill him if he wished to do so. While that genin ran for his life Naruto walked to dying Oto kunoichi and plunged kunai that he took out of holster into her neck, thus ending her suffering.

His friends watched how he was dealing with those Oto genin and were little afraid as they never saw him killing someone in cold blood as if he was nothing. They were shocked also by how brutally he killed those enemies and that he didn't care about their lives, as if they were nothing at all.

"Why did you kill her?" Asked pale Ino, when Naruto was back in their cave, Sasuke finally waking up.

"He would die on her own." Shrugged off Naruto "I only ended her suffering as those injuries were almost impossible to heal. Also she is or rather was a servant of Orochimaru and Kami only knows what Orochimaru planned for her."

"What is going on?" Asked Sasuke as he clunched place where was Cursed Mark, which was trying to break through the seal placed on it.

"You received 'gift' from Orochimaru." Explained Naruto "I sealed it off as it is more of a curse than a gift. Other than that we are done with this task."

"So that's why my neck hurts me?" Asked Sasuke

"Aye" Nodded Naruto "Can you move?"

"Yes" Said Sasuke as he moved from his place.

"Good" Nodded Shikamaru after that he turned to Naruto "We have all scrolls?" Naruto only nodded at those words "Good, we will head for place where we need to be."

o-0-o

"So what is awaiting those that will pass?" Asked Anko as she stood in control center and watched as genin fought, bled and died all around the field.

"They will have some time to rest. Assuming they will get here sooner than last day of this task." Said Ao "After that there is second part of it. If if everything will according to plan we won't need to have preliminaries after it."

"I knew that much when I was briefed in Konoha on it." Said impatiently Anko

"When they will pass it they will be taken to three hundred meters by three hundred flat arena, in the middle of which will be placed thirty-two bracelets. Ones that will get bracelet, either getting it from the pile or from dead body of someone will qualify for the finals." Said Ao as he held bracelet with symbols of Kiri ans Konoha on it.

"Wonderful" Nodded Anko when she heard about it and at the same time bell rung, which was a sign that someone entered the tower in which they were. By someone meaning genin. "I wonder who it is."

"Let me see." Said Ao as veins around his eyepatch bulged out "Three teams from Konoha. I will go welcome them."

o-0-o

Konoha Nine quickly closed their camp and ran towards tower which was set on the opposite edge of the training ground and where they were asked to report after doing their task, that is getting their scrolls, which wasn't a hard thing to do as enemies walked into them and they didn't need to look for them too much. Jumping over small stream they finally stopped in front of large concrete structure that was their target, when they entered it they saw a corridor with a blind end.

"Any idea what we need to do?" Asked Ino

"Propably something with scrolls." Said Shikamaru "We were told to wait with opening them till we are in the tower. So we should open them."

Naruto took out scrolls and slapped them onto the floor of the room, when he did that he opened them and saw two halves of sealing matrix that looked like modified summoning. He put them together, so that they formed one matrix and jumped away. When he did that he saw a plume of smoke rising from them and moments later they stood face to face with Kiri ninja.

"Congratulations on passing second stage. I'm Ao and I will be your guide for this stage." Said Kiri nin "If you follow me I will show you your rooms, you have time till the end of this task to rest and do whatever you want."

"Sounds good." Said Shikamaru and followed him, rest of Konoha Nine following suit. They walked through the maze of corridors until they found their rooms.

o-0-o

When Konoha Nine entered their rooms they saw their sensei waiting inside of them.

"You are second group of teams that completed this task." Said Kakashi when he saw them "First one was one from Suna."

"We would be sooner, but we had a meeting with Snake." Said Naruto "He marked Sasuke, I sealed it and lost consciousness for few hours."

"Snake as in Orochimaru?" Asked Kakashi as he looked at his team

"Same one." Nodded Naruto "I used _Fuja Hoin_ on it and it works."

"Good job." Said Kakashi "I suggest you rest, there is second stage of this part."

o-0-o

When whole time of this task passed, into the second stage qualified sixty teams which gave hundred and eighty shinobi that wanted to qualify for the great finals, but they were unaware of what was awaiting them...

o-0-o

 **A/N – Reviews**

" **WTF...first ur Ass kissing up to Sasuke i mean teaching tht scum the Rasengan...ur crazy first of all Hinata has her Juho fist(Gentle step twin lion) so i dnt see the point in striping away the core essence of what makes naruto original and special...Sasuke has the chidori so why must u destroy tht huh!?Konohamaru is naruto's most beloved student the only person who Idolish him n yet u take the monkey summon n u give it to naruto are u mad?Dude ur ruining the plot big time" – I like Sasuke as a character and he will learn Rasengan, so he can figure out Chidori the same way Kakashi did, that is by tinkering with Rasengan, as Kakashi developed Chidori while trying to develop Raiton – Rasengan.**

 **She developed that for Shippuden, sorry to say, but in normal Naruto in taijustu she was useless and was more of a deadweight than of a capable shinobi, so I solved it in such way.**

 **Naruto here has Mokuton and Kongo Fusa so Rasengan doesn't make him that special as in anime or manga where he did three jutsu through the whole series. Kage Bunshin, Kuchiyose or variations of it and Rasengan or variations of it, while here he can choose tools as he needs them.**

 **Konohamaru won't be as important as he was in the canon as Naruto will mature much quicker and won't simply need Konohamaru. About Monkey Summoning Contract, where should I start with that. Let's start with Konohamaru, on Naruto wiki there is no mention of him ever signing it, so whole point is just moot. Also I can give what I want to whoever I want as it is AU(Alternate Universe) where I play with setting as I like or want. So if you don't like it, simply don't read it. Instead of commenting about things that make this somewhat different than normal Naruto maybe you should try to write a short story or fanfic so you can see how hard it is. I will tell it only once, writing one chapter takes me between four or six hours and I have other things that I could be doing during that time, not to mention multitude of other projects that I work at the same time, family, school and so on. Not to mention that I use fanfictions as a break between writing my own story and studying some things for school so seriously, just fuck off.**

" **meh I really don't think anything is safely locked up in konoha at least not in canon. Think about how lax their security is it's pretty damn pathetic considering Ibiki's little brother Idate managed to get in and steal the Raijin No Ken for Aoi and then Naruto was later able to get in and KO the Hokage with a perverted jutsu and steal the scroll of seals and with as long as Naruto was alone in the forest with that scroll if it were anyone else an they were a serious threat to Konoha they'd have had time to leave the village and be probably half way to a bordering village by the time they got a tracking unit together. Now as for the story I like that you're doing a fairly unique twist to the Chunin exams but I dislike that you've made Konoha look even dumber. In the search for Tsunade it was already revealed that Kabuto is a traitor as you had Jiraiya specifically point out that the other two chakra signatures Naruto was feeling in the town were Orochimaru and Kabuto so why wouldn't Naruto remember that and why wouldn't they have already grabbed Kabuto immediately after the exam or even before?" – You keep spies that you know about so enemy won't get curious and nobody will be sane enough to arrest him in front of genin from various villages. Naruto technically could catch him and get ANBU to throw him into some cell, but he would confirm what Kabuto said and would get an even bigger bullseye on his back for what he did. Not to mention that he would confirm that he is more than normal genin.**

 **Those rings won't get stolen by anybody, they are locked beneath Senju compound and I don't think that no sane thief is going to break into compound around which are constant ANBU patrols, is covered in more traps than some fortresses and inside he still needs to go through three shinobi that can kill him. Assuming he would manage to knock out Tsunade, Naruto and Shizune on his way to the rings, getting outside would be tad harder with chase that has orders to first kill and later check what did they kill.**

 **Normal A/N – Naruto knows Hachimon as he simply needs a good control over his chakra and knowledge where those gates are to open them and considering that he has his famous clan chakra control, opening them is easy for him.**


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N - First two tasks are finally done with this chapter and from now on they prepare for the last round. Konoha is also cleaning its forces from unwanted elements.**

All people that passed first part of second task were taken out of the tower by their sensei and group of Kiri ninja that was going to be their guides that were going to show them training ground. After thirty minutes of travel they stood on the edge of large three hundred meters by three hundred meters large training field, which was completely flat and bare of any vegetation.

"In the middle of this training ground are placed thirty two bracelets." Said Ao "They're your ticket to the last stage, you need to get one and channel some chakra into it. It will take you out of arena and into room outside of it. Those that won't get a one, won't pass. You can do whatever you want to get those bracelets, you have thirty minutes to prepare for it."

"But what about those that finished previous task today?" Shouted one of Ame genin "It is unfair as some of them had more time to rest."

"Life is unfair." Replied coldly Ao "Get used to that thought. As I said, you have thirty minutes to prepare for it and we will begin."

o-0-o

"I should suspect such thing from Kiri." Sighed Naruto "After all their graduation exams were bloody and they like killing."

"Wonderful" Muttered Shikamaru "We need to work together to survive it."

"Modified Ino-Shika-Cho?" Asked Naruto "You would attack ones that would get past me, Neji, Hinata, Lee and Sasuke. And Tenten would support us from a long range."

"That's propably a best idea." Said Shikamaru

"What about you using Mokuton?" Asked Sasuke looking at Naruto

"No" Naruto said "That's one of aces I don't want to reveal, at least not yet."

"We can't just injure them." Said Sasuke "We need to either knock them out or kill as they won't hesitate with killing us."

"If you see that redhead from Suna with a gourd on his back, do not approach him." Added Naruto "He is crazy and wants to kill."

"Lovely." Muttered Shikamaru "Anything else?"

"No" Said Naruto and focused on other teams, which were also talking how to get this task done.

o-0-o

Thirty minutes quickly passed and before they could think too much it started. Naruto grasped hilt of Raijin no Ken, while to his right stood Sasuke in his hand his katana. Behind them were Hinata, Neji and Lee, while behind them stood Tenten and Ino-Shika-Cho trio, which was preparing to unleash one of their combination attacks.

When signal was sounded they charged onto the field heading towards pile of bracelets that were in the middle of it, same as others team did. So far nobody was firing any jutsu as they hoped to get to the bracelet before other teams and thus save their chakra for later. Naruto sensed hail od shuriken coming from his left and threw some on his own to block them and moments later he was rewarded with clang of metal hitting metal as shuriken clashed with each other.

However moment of fighting approached faster and faster as they were getting closer to those bracelet, as well as closer to other genin and not many were going to let that change escape them, when they could at least try to get it. Naruto blocked tanto that tried to remove his head and responded with his own lunge which ended inside of someone chest as he opened his flank and allowed Naruto to kill him. He sensed troubles behind and when he was turning he saw person split in half by bloodied katana held by Sasuke, while Hinata and Neji moved closer to them, unleashing flurry of strikes at whoever got close.

"Thanks" Said Naruto when he saw that Sasuke saved him

"No problem" Replied Uchiha and looked around, it looked like bloodbath. Ino-Shika-Cho unleashed their attacks and they saw Chouji charging through the genin to their right while directed by Shikamaru shadow. Everything was covered in blood with plenty of dead bodies strewn across the field, all of them were covered in blood and gore as they already fought some.

"We need to hurry." Said Naruto as he gazed towards bracelets lying on the ground in the middle of the field "Or we will be late." When he said those words Sasuke nodded and charged straight ahead, followed by Naruto and rest of their group. They slowly moved forward hacking, slashing and killing and injuring genin all around them as they were getting closer to their prizes. Soon they were covered in blood from head to toe as they cleaved bloody path through the crowds of genin, getting closer and closer to their targets.

"Sasuke watch out!" Yelled Naruto as he saw genin from Kusa that faked his death and appeared behind Sasuke, only to receive three kunai that embedded in his skull killing him where he stood. Naruto charged forward and moments later stood near Sasuke as they cleaved path for the rest of their team as they tried to get closer to their target. Naruto noticed blading coming from behind and rolled out of the way allowing Sasuke to deal with that genin, as Uchiha simply split neck of him in half, killing him on the spot.

After several minutes of such slaughter they managed to get to their prizes, Naruto grabbed nearest one and threw it backwards towards Tenten who was nearby, she caught it and threw it at Shikamaru, who grabbed and activated it, thus disappearing from the field. Next to disappear was Ino, followed by Chouji, Tenten, Lee, Hinata, Neji, Sasuke and finally Naruto.

o-0-o

When Naruto once again opened his eyes he saw that he was in some room with other genin that passed that bloody exam and awaited arrival of proctor, most of them was covered in blood, gore and grime. Everybody was looking in each other direction with a lot of wariness visible in their behavior, as if they weren't sure what was going to happen next, but most of them lowered their weapons and hit them back in holsters or scabbards. As if they were trying to remove as much tension as possible and to rest as all of them were bleeding from various smaller or bigger wounds and wanted to simply relax. Few moments later doors opened and through them walked in Ao.

"To those that passed congratulations." He said looking around "You have six weeks to prepare for the next stage, that is final round that will be held in Konoha. You will know who is going to be your opponent on the day of finals as we want to give all of you even chances and make it more exciting, not only for you, but also for those that will be watching you. Those from other villages will be escorted there by one of our ninja and jonin-sensei of their team, people from our village will come with me."

Genin nodded and watched as after Aoi walked in several jonin from different villages and came to pick up their teams, Konoha Nine walked towards theirs the moment they spotted them.

"Good teamwork and nice performance." Said Kakashi when he saw them "Due to the fact that the tournament is series of one on one fights, you will need to find a teacher for that time. As training as a team would be stupid as you would learn what your opponents know."

"Hai" Nodded genin and followed their jonin out of the room and later out of the building, where they were joined by one ninja from Kiri that was tasked with getting them to Konoha border.

o-0-o

Travel to Konoha passed without any interesting events and after three days of travel they were in front of Konoha gates where they split, each of them venturing in their own direction. Naruto jumped onto the nearest roof and ran towards Senju compound as he wanted simply rest after this exam and to forget what happened during it, it wasn't the most pleasant exam he ever saw. He also needed to think about possible teachers for this period before the exam as he needed to prepare for it, he had couple of ideas, but he needed to choose the best one. He was considering Yamato, Tsunade and Jiraiya, each of them had certain advantages and disadvantages.

Once he was in front of the compound he quietly sneaked inside and ran through it heading to room he chose as his own as he badly needed a shower and to change clothes as those weren't the freshest ones and that was putting it mildly as for last few days he was wearing them as he was fighting, killing enemies and trying to survive during that exam. He smelled of blood, sweat and death, which wasn't the most pleasing smell. If he was going to be honest with himself he would said that he stank.

"I see that you got back from the exam." Said Shizune when she saw him

"Can you not mention it?" Asked Naruto as he sat on the porch, finally in fresh clothes and not smelling of blood. "I still can smell blood all over myself."

"What it was?" Asked Shizune with mild interest visible in her voice. She didn't remember any reason for person to smell so bad after exam.

"Battle royale." Simply said Naruto "I passed it and now I need to find who would show me a thing or two before the last stage."

"I can show you even more of poisons, antidotes and healing jutsu." Promised Shizune "You didn't mention who will be your enemy, why?"

"Because I don't know." Said Naruto "I will know on the day of the finals. I wonder whose brilliant idea was that."

"Mine" Said Tsunade "So that I could earn a lot gambling and betting on you. But I will help you with training, I will also get Jiraiya to help you with it as he should be close. From what I know about what you know you need to polish your knowledge and get medical ninjutsu and sealing to decent level. While with second I won't help you much, but with first I should be able help you rather easily."

"Ero-sennin is in the village?" Asked Naruto as he looked at Tsunade

"Ero-sennin?" She asked, until something clicked in her mind when she started laughing "That's the best name for that pervert I heard in a long time."

"I'm a super pervert, not a normal pervert." Said Jiraiya as he jumped onto the ground in front of Naruto and paled, when he noticed same look in eyes of Naruto and Tsunade, one that promised pain and suffering for him. He also felt plenty of chakra being gathered in their fists, which spelled danger for him. "Fine, fine, fine, I didn't say a thing." Jiraiya quickly added as he moved away from those two, so he could avoid those chakra enhanced punches that were prepared to be unleashed at him.

"So Ero-sennin are you going to teach me all advanced fuinjutsu?" Asked Naruto "As I recently discovered that it is quite handy in the middle of chunin exam, especially ones used to seal curses and other nasty things."

"What did happen?" Asked Jiraiya with narrowed eyes as one person came into his mind.

"Your third team-mate appeared in the middle of the exam." Explained Naruto "He knocked me out and marked Sasuke with his seal which I sealed with _Fuja Hoin_."

"Not a bad idea with that seal." Said Jiraiya "But I think more permanent solution is needed. Tell your friend to be here in week or so as I should be able to cover seals that you will need to fix it during this week."

"How dangerous it is?" Asked cautiously Naruto as he knew a thing or two about seals

"Really dangerous." Said Jiraiya, thinking how to describe this seal as it was vile and dangerous thing, really dangerous and vile thing. "They try to possess the mind of person that they are placed upon, Itachi isn't stupid so he will know what to do when he will see it on Sasuke neck. He will probably reinforce it rather heavily and wait for you or me to solve it for good."

"You say it like I should know how to do that." Said Naruto looking at his godfather.

"Yes" Nodded Jiraiya and looked at Tsunade "Did you show him sealing room underneath compound?"

"No" Said Tsunade "I thought he already found it."

"No, I didn't find any sealing room." Said Naruto after a moment of thought, he thought that he knew all ins and outs of Senju compound, but apparently he was quite wrong as it seemed that there was more to it.

"Than I think it's the time for you to see it." Said Tsunade as she rose from place where she was sitting and motioned for Jiraiya and Naruto to follow her through the maze of corridors inside of the compound. After few moments of walk they arrived in a part of compound that Naruto never saw before. "You won't find it unless you know where to look for it, it was done in such way so it could stay safe." She explained as they continued walking, after few more minutes they stopped in front of large wooden doors engraved with an image of Senju trident. Walls around them seemed to be thicker and more resistant than they were anywhere else in the compound. Tsunade walked forward to them and pressed her hand against them, when she did that doors creaked and slowly opened.

"Wow" Managed to say Naruto when he saw what was behind those doors, there was a rectangular room with made out of wood with every single inch of it covered in runes and signs that strengthen seals that were created in it. In the middle of it was a raised dais, which was used as an altar during sealing process with another sets of signs and runes surrounding it, both strengthening as well as containing ones so vile and dangerous things weren't able to escape the trap and try to latch onto something else.

"I had the same reaction when I saw it for the first time." Said Jiraiya "It can be used to seal almost anything and unless you allow it, nothing I mean nothing will escape it as those doors are heavily reinforced and once sealing is started they lock themselves. Also if you have Kongo Fusa you will be able to even further reinforce it as it was designed having Uzumaki in mind and your Kekkei Genkai."

"I have those chains." Said Naruto as over his shoulder appeared golden glowing chain with sharp end, whole body of it covered in streams of kanji so small that almost impossible to see and read. Those were seals covering those chains and ones that made them so scary as they were able to trap anybody or anything user of them wished to trap.

"Should I know about something else?" Asked Tsunade as she looked at Naruto. She was living with him in this compound for something like four months or even more and she was still learning new things about him.

"I don't think so." Said Naruto as he ran through a list of his abilities and Kekkei Genkai "No, I'm sure that I mentioned every single one of them."

"Good" Nodded happily Tsunade "Meet me on the training ground outside, it's time for your true training to begin."

"Why do I have a feeling that I won't like it?" Weakly asked Naruto

"Because gaki she is dead serious right now and when she is in this mood she is scary." Said Jiraiya looking at Naruto, who paled and gulped when he thought about what Tsunade was able to do when she wasn't going at full power.

o-0-o

"What the hell is happening to my chakra control?" Asked annoyed Sasuke as another Hosenka didn't work as it should be.

"Did you have any seal placed on you?" Asked him Itachi, who was watching his otouto attempts at mastering Katon jutsu and they weren't as good as they were during that training before the exam. Also from what he knew from Naruto, Sasuke was able to do Hosenka without full chain of seals.

"I had" Nodded Sasuke "Two to be exact, first one by Orochimaru" When he said those name Itachi hissed and his eyes morphed into Sharingan "And second one by Naruto."

"And here is your problem." Said Itachi as he moved closer and looked at those seals visible on Sasuke neck "While Naruto did what was right at that time, he used temporary solution to this problem and it isn't subtle one. So until he will be able to remove that seal ans knowing him he is digging through scrolls that he has about all kinds of seals and ones that ANBU managed to get from various Orochimaru hideouts. There is little sense in working on any ninjutsu as you will get only frustrated by it, so instead we will work on kenjutsu, taijustu and miscellaneous things that will be helpful facing various opponents as you don't know who you will be facing in this tournament. So how good are you in shurikenjutsu?"

"Good enough." Said Sasuke glaring at his brother.

"Where did I heard those words?" Muttered Itachi as he remembered his yellow haired friend that said the same thing when Itachi was training him few years ago. He cut short his musings that were getting nowhere and looked at Sasuke "Do you know how to hit twenty targets, four of them in your blind zone?"

"No" Admitted Sasuke, knowing well that lying would be a little pointless as aniki would see through it easily.

"So we will start from it." Said Itachi as he looked at Sasuke and later around the field, there were twenty targets so showing it would be rather easy for him. However learning and mastering it by Sasuke was a completely different story as there was a difference between those two things. "Key to it is..."

o-0-o

Hinata ducked under Juuken strike coming from her father and responded with her own, she could see that she was getting better in taijustu and this style was a godsend for her as she was able room finally fight in a way that felt natural for her and in one that she didn't like. She was able to keep up with her father as they were sparring so she could prepare for chunin exams. Neji was also included in those training session, much to displeasure of clan elders as they had troubles with accepting the fact that member from the Branch Family was learning jutsu previously only used by the Main Family. However they couldn't do much as they were only advisors to clan head and couldn't override his decisions, and since he was personally training them, they couldn't influence trainers to accidentally injure or kill Neji.

"You fight much better than you did." Said Hiashi during one of breaks between training sessions "Change of the style helped you, even if elders are displeased with it they can do nothing about it. Neji you are faring really well."

"Thank you, Otou-sama" Said Hinata bowing lightly.

"Thank you, Hiashi-sama" Neji said moments later.

"I think it is time for me to show you ultimate defense of our clan, _Hakkeshō Kaiten_ which is able to stop almost every single attack coming your way and in case of projectiles send it in random direction, which means you need to be careful with when and how you use it as you might injure your friends or people that you try to protect when using it." Said Hiashi as he looked at his students, while elders frowned upon idea of them learning other jutsu than their clan taijustu he allowed their sensei to teach them other things as he knew from his own experience that whole Juuken was a powerful tool, it had some minor or major flaws, depending on person point of view about them. "It looks like this." As he said those words he started rapidly spinning in place, chakra pouring out of every single tenketsu of his body and forming a glowing blue sphere around him, that was able to protect person using it from enemy attacks. It was also one of the most guarded clan secrets and elders were going to raise hell about Neji learning it, but they couldn't do much. They would activate seal on his forehead and they would have nasty end as he would be able to track down who used it or Tsunade-sama would do that.

"Key to this jutsu is knowledge about direction in which your chakra spins and how to manifest it outside of your body as when you are using it you push it outside of your body..."

o-0-o

Naruto was looking at simple in theory seal that was placed on one of his Tou-san kunai, one that allowed him to jump to those kunai using his famous _Hiraishin_ jutsu. It seems simple as there was a beacon and blood seal, and couple of other supporting seals, yet he couldn't figure out how to get them working for himself. He and Jiraiya spent last few days working with various seals until they got to space-time ninjutsu and barriers, and Naruto tried to understand this seal. He also had copy of seal used by Senju Tobirama and while it made more sense to him, it was so inefficient that he simply discarded it as useless as he would waste too much chakra and time with each jump.

"It doesn't make any freaking sense." He sighed after fifteenth or so attempt at solving this riddle, he felt like he was close to it, yet he was far from it.

"There was a reason why your father was considered a prodigy in terms of sealing." Said Jiraiya as he looked at another burned piece of paper "While having Hiraishin would be nice, you don't need to master it as you have more than enough other options handy. So instead I suggest you focus on seals used to contain bijuu and ones to solve the issue of that mark on Sasuke."

"I guess you are right." Said Naruto as he crumbled last remains of failed seal and threw them into a bin that stood nearby, almost full with them.

"So how does this mark looks like?" Asked Jiraiya as he near Naruto who took clean sheet of paper to write it.

"It looks similar to this." Said Naruto as he drew a crude drawing of that mark, three tomoes close to each other.

"So it is Cursed Mark of Heaven." Said Jiraiya as he looked at that drawing "Crude seal and very simple, but annoying to deal with. From what I know about it, it has three functions. First one is to gather nature's chakra, second is to try to influence mind of person which received it and last one is locked in this stage, I don't know what it does. To deal with it you need a seal that will push it out of his body and into the air, thus allowing it to go away or be destroyed."

"What about such seal?" Asked Naruto as he did a rough sketch of modified _Fuja Hoin_ , it was similar, yet different at the same it. Also it wasn't designed to contain, but to push out foreign chakra and interferences.

"It might work." Said Jiraiya as he looked at it, but he quickly spotted ways to improve it and added few things. "But you need to add those four prongs, so it can be better anchored into his chakra network. Also second ring will support main matrix of it, while normally it would be a little pointless, when dealing with such seals it's better to be safe than sorry." He explained what he added. "Also having Tsunade close by would be a good thing as those seals like to have traps in them and Kami only knows what can happen when you will crack it open."

Naruto only nodded and once again looked at that seal, contemplating what to do with it and how he could improve it even further as with those modifications made by Jiraiya it looked more solid, way more in fact as nothing should be able to escape from it. Unless someone knew how it was designed and was able to spend hours, upon hours looking for small cracks and holes in it that could be used to weaken and breach it.

It was one of reasons why Naruto loved fuinjutsu, it wasn't about simply repeating jutsu, it was more about creating your own solutions as there was only a certain set of seals and rest was slightly different for each school of sealing or even master. As some preferred one was of doing things, while other another and both were correct. Only difference between them was how effective they were and how they looked, between some could be also a difference in how final effect looked, but not in all cases.

"You suspect that Hebi-teme placed something nasty inside of that seal that isn't visible?" Asked Naruto as he looked at Jiraiya.

"Knowing him most certainly and it is propably a really dangerous thing as he believes that if he can't have it, nobody can have it. Which means that it can be anything from a simple seal locking Sharingan to suicide one." Said Jiraiya with a frown "That's why I want Tsunade to be there, so she can heal him if we find something nasty."

o-0-o

"Nice group of participants." Said Hokage as he looked through the papers about second stage of chunin exam "Thirty-two genin, twelve from our village, three from Suna, three from Kiri, three from Kumo, one from Taki, two from Ame, three from Kusa and three from Iwa."

"Yes" Nodded tired Shikaku "Iwa hates us, Kumo hates Kiri, Ame and Kusa hates us, Kiri hates Suna. Ame, Kusa and Suna are plotting together with Oto against us and Kami only knows who. Placing them so that they won't kill each other will be a challenge. Also putting those reinforcements from Kiri and Kumo will be a pain, so that they won't be spotted by our friends or his spies."

"So Kumo agreed to help us?" Asked shocked Hokage, as he didn't expect Kumo to be so helpful as it didn't like Konoha and vice versa, but apparently they liked Orochimaru even less and they weren't going to let this occasion pass by. Maybe the smelled occasion and wanted to replace Suna as an ally of Konoha, due to rumors that Suna found itself on bad side of Konoha.

"Aye" Nodded Shikaku "Four hundred shinobi, forty Storm under command of Darui. He will arrive with them three days before summit, so we can coordinate and run some drills with them. Kiri is sending two hundred shinobi, sixty Sharks, whole Kiri no Shinobigatana Shinchinin Shu under command of Kushimaru. Are you bringing Naruto into command for this operation?"

"Yes" Said Hiruzen "He needs to get experience and assuming our rumors about Suna jinchuuriki are true, he will be the one responsible for stopping him. So it will be better for him to know what is going on. I will assign two squads of ANBU to be near him at all times, in one of them will be Yamato. Itachi and Kisame will be leading our ANBU reserves to stop ones that will get past our lines."

"Sound plan" Nodded Shikaku "What about evacuation plans?"

"We will wait with execution of them until the moment of attack or they will get spooked. I would like to execute them sooner, but the risk it too great." Said Hokage "Make it clear to shinobi that Naruto can override them if he needs to as he should have the best knowledge what is going on thanks to that bond between all bijuu and jinchuuriki. So I don't want to heat about any protests against his orders."

"I will do that." Nodded Shikaku "What about seating of our guests during finals as leader of Kusa will arrive. Along with all Kage that will be here two days before finals as it is when Summit will start."

"Place him below me and Raikage so we can kill him quickly if needed." Said Hokage "Tsunade and Jiraiya will be with me as guards, so we should be able to deal with Orochimaru if he will appear. Pass a word to Ibiki that he has free reign in dealing with all known spies and suspected ones week before the finals, it would be a typical sweep before arrival of other Kage."

"I will do that." Said Shikaku as he rose from his seat. There were perks of being a jonin commander. One of them was knowledge of what was going on and full unlimited access to classified data. "I think those are all major points and other will be covered at later time."

o-0-o

Sasuke entered Senju compound as he was told be Naruto and looked around as it was a different area than he was before. It seemed to be almost alive with power and knowledge that was hidden inside of the building.

"Good that you are here." Said Naruto when he saw Sasuke "Follow me as otherwise you won't find this room and I found a permanent way of dealing with that gift left by Orochimaru."

"Good" Nodded Sasuke "It was getting annoying as it messed up my chakra flow and my control of it."

"So that's why I want to destroy it completely." Replied Naruto as he led Sasuke to the sealing room beneath Senju compound. After few minutes of walk they were there. "Lay on that altar and remove shirt as I will need to write quite a lot of seals on your body."

Sasuke nodded and walked to altar that was placed in the middle of it, he managed to notice Jiraiya and Tsunade standing there. He laid on it and soon felt signs being drawn on his skin as Naruto and Jiraiya were placing seals that were going to deal with that gift.

"On three." Said Jiraiya looking at Naruto who slowly nodded and channeled chakra into his fingertips in certain pattern that was going to activate this seal, while Jiraiya prepared to disable _Fuja Hoin_ that was placed around that Cursed Mark. "One, two, three." When Jiraiya said three he slammed his hand onto seal around Cursed Mark which caused scream of pain from Sasuke and moments later Naruto activated seal that he had drawn moments earlier. When he did that Cursed Mark started pulsing and glowing red as seals were fighting for dominance, after few minutes from that seal shot out stream of hot ink, mixed with blood and things that were hard to describe. Naruto jumped away from this before it could hit him as it could be toxic.

"He is unconscious, but other than that fine." Said Tsunade as she checked vitals of Sasuke once Cursed Mark disappeared "It seems that there were no gifts left by Orochimaru.

"But amount of chakra needed for this was huge." Managed to say Naruto before he hit the floor as he lost consciousness from exhaustion caused by destroying that Cursed Mark and amount of chakra used during it, it would probably kill weaker shinobi.

o-0-o

"I guess I like to pass out from exhaustion." Said Naruto once he woke up few moments later once Kyubi refilled his reserves with his own chakra.

"Typical chakra exhaustion." Said Tsunade "Kyubi already fixed it."

"Not for the first time." Said Naruto "He did that already for few times."

"Once you are rested we will renew your training." Said Jiraiya "It is time for you to learn combination jutsu with Toads."

"Finally!" Shouted Naruto in excitement as those were one of things he wanted to learn the most. To be continued...

o-0-o

 **A/N – Sorry for cliffhanger, but I love them...**

 **Reviews:**

" **Have you never seen a quote they look like "this"." – I explained more that few times that I was using Word that was set to Polish and quotations mark in Polish are written differently. End of topic.**

" **so I just finished reading what you have so far and other than grammatical errors that are here and there this is this a great story incredible actually I can't wait for your next chapter" – Grammatical errors will happen at all times and I try to spot as many as I can, but some will evade me.**

" **Unfortunately what a lot of idiots don't understand is how power the rasengan and rasenshurikin is. They're A class and S-class. 99 percent of the other jutsu you see on Naruto are literally C, the luck ones B. Fireball, lightening hound, mudballs all that other crap is leagues out of the rasenshurikin. So before you diss it remember it was that jutsu that defeated madz, kaguya, obito, pain, zombie brother. All those other flashy jutsu failed. Just because they look cooler does mean they are. Check the wiki.**

 **Anyway im dropping this story. Sasuke now has both rasengan and chidori so he'll have both rasenshurikin and kirin, way to overpower him. And monkeys really! Senjutsu is much cooler than turning into a useless staff."**

 **Yes Rasenshuriken is powerful, nobody will argue about that, but it's boring. Same as Rasengan which almost screams what will be the next attack and unless you manage to pin down your enemy or you use spam of clones with it, he has a good chance to evade it.**

 **About fight with Madara at the end, honestly it was rather lame, either Madara wasn't paying attention to them or Kishi just wanted to finish it quickly. For Kami sake, Madara was as strong as Hashirama when he didn't have Rinnengan, so he should beat them into the ground without any problem. If my zombie brothers you mean Hidan and Kakuzu, than Hidan was buried alive thanks to some intelligence, clever thinking and few weak jutsu. About Kakuzu, yes Rasenshuriken killed him, but almost destroyed Naruto arm in the process.**

 **About flashy jutsu, what is a point of using a club (Rasenshuriken), when scalpel (Doryūdan) will work just fine. For your knowledge, Sandaime Hokage managed to fight Orochimaru and his two summons to a standstill without using any really flashy jutsu. Same with Itachi who for multiple times fought various teams and people to a standstill without anything over A-rank, yes he didn't have a lot of chakra, but he had perfect control of it. Also if he wanted to use them, he could use them without any problems as he should know a lot of them.**

 **Not to mention that during long fights using A and S-rank jutsu can lead to your defeat as enemy can simply try to delay the fight and force you to lose your chakra, while he waits. So weaker jutsu are better as you can use them without losing too much chakra, which means you can use them freely.**

 **Sasuke won't have Rasenshuriken as he don't have Fuuton chakra and Rasenshuriken is based on it, about Kirin, who said he will have it. He might not even develop it in this story.**

 **I choose Monkeys as his primary summons as they are rarely seen, are quite interesting and give plenty of options for him during battles. About senjutsu, it's honestly overrated as it doesn't give that much power compared to other things and risks that come with it are rather big. It gives him fancy taijustu and some sensory power, which isn't that much.**

 **"the fight between naruto and zabuza was an eye opener for him.. will zabuza taste more of naruto abilities?" - we will see about that, it will be a surprise for all of you.**


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N – Preparations for chunin exams part two, they are pushed to and past their limits. A little late as I was on a holidays and got back just few hours ago.**

"So collaboration jutsu with Toads, they are a lot like normal collaboration with other shinobi, but here instead of another shinobi you work with summon to get the jutsu done." Said Jiraiya looking at Naruto "Key is in learning how much chakra you need to put into it and what Toads can give you in terms of natures and chakra. There are also several jutsu that are variants of summoning, yet you summon different Toads than normal ones."

"Cool" Said Naruto as he listened keenly to what Jiraiya was saying. Causing old sage to remember times when he was sensei of Namikaze Minato as Naruto had almost the same expression when fully focused on something.

"So Toads." Said Jiraiya "Start with simple summoning, I want to see what you can summon when doing that at full power."

"Full power as if with opened Hachimon?" Naruto asked as he looked at Jiraiya, even without it he had huge amounts of chakra, but with it he had so much chakra that he didn't know what to do with it.

"No" Shook his head Toad Sage "Without it, it should be enough to summon Gamabunta or maybe even them."

"What do you mean by them?" Asked Naruto

"You will find out if you summon them." Said Jiraiya "Now do the summoning."

Naruto nodded, bit his thumb and flashed through a chain of seals before he slammed his palm onto the ground and shouted _"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!_ " When he did that there was a large cloud of smoke from which came two old voices.

" _Where are we?"_ Asked one that sounded like a male

" _Better question is who summoned us."_ Replied feminine one

" _It didn't feel like Jiraiya-chan, did it?"_ Asked male

" _No"_ Said feminine one _"Looks like we have new summoner who overdid his summoning."_

"He summoned them." Managed to stutter Jiraiya as he recognized those voices as they belonged to Fukusaku-sama and Shima-sama, two sages that were responsible for teaching senjutsu to ones that were worthy to be taught it in version known to Myobokou. When the smoke was gone in front of Naruto stood two small Toads that looked quite old.

" _Jiraiya!"_ Yelled male one _"Maybe you will introduce us to the new summoner!?"_

"Yes" Hastily said Jiraiya and looked at Naruto who didn't know what was going on "You just summoned two elder toads. Fukusaku-sama and Shima-sama, they are responsible for teaching senjutsu to ones that are ready for it. And that is Senju Naruto, son of Namikaze Minato."

" _He looks a lot like his father."_ Said Fukusaku _"Jiraiya get lost while I will teach Naruto-chan what he needs to know."_

"But..." Tried to protest Jiraiya and got whacked in head by Shima

" _Go peep on some woman."_ Yelled Shima as she looked at Jiraiya who quickly ran away from her. _"Good, since that pervert is gone we can start on your training."_

o-0-o

"Naruto is incredible." Said Jiraiya as he leaped into his sensei office.

"What did he do this time?" Asked Hokage not even bothering to rise his head from the paperwork he was studying, or at least it looked as such.

"He summoned for the first time Toads and guess who he summoned." Said Jiraiya

"Gamabunta?" Asked Hokage referring to the most powerful Toad and one that was boss summon, short of Sages, but they were a different story.

"That was on his second attempt." Said Jiraiya "At first he summoned Sages."

"What?" Asked Hokage as his pipe escaped his hand and landed with a loud sound on the desk in front of him. He didn't expect to hear such things about Naruto.

"You heard it right, sensei." Said Jiraiya "He summoned both Sages and that was without Hachimon opened and he said he could open those gates."

"He is kind of special, isn't he." Hokage reclined in his seat and looked at Jiraiya "Enma is also impressed by him."

"I wonder what else he will do." Said Jiraiya "As sages reverse summoned him to Myobokou and will show him how to use cooperation jutsu with Toads and so he can meet all of them. Also they told me to get lost so I cannot interrupt them."

"That is interesting development" Said Hokage looking at his student and advisor "So what are you planning to teach him during this break?"

"More of Katon and Suiton jutsu." Said Jiraiya after a moment of thought "Some of the most advanced fuinjutsu, while Tsunade will work with him on chakra control and medical jutsu plus poisons and antidotes. He might outshine Minato and Kakashi as he is already almost at the level Kakashi was at his age, power wise he is beyond it, but he lacks experience and he needs to mature."

"Itachi was and is a good influence on him." Said Hokage, puffing his pipe and looking outside the window "He helped him to pull together after few of missions and calmed him down a lot, he still has his Uzumaki temper, but he has much better control over his emotions."

"Yes" Nodded Jiraiya as he noticed that Naruto more often than not was first thinking and later doing something. "It helps him a lot, especially with seals as he actually have a patience to listen to something before doing a thing."

o-0-o

"I will ask you once again. What are the plans of Orochimaru?" Asked Ibiki as he looked at the battered form of Kabuto tied to a wall and in clothes that were more of shreds than clothes. As nobody was caring about in what state he was, as long as he was alive, it was enough for one torturing him.

"I won't tell you, I won't betray my master." Spat at him Kabuto and moments later fist crashed into his nose turning it into a bloody mess.

"Looks like we will spend a lot of time here, together." Said Ibiki looking at the prisoner in front of him. They were trying to crack him and make speak for last week or so and without much effect, maybe it was time to get more direct with him. "So I will ask in other way. Why Sasuke got marked by Orochimaru?"

"So he can have more power." Said Kabuto and winced when he felt Ibiki foot crash into his crotch, it felt like hell, but he was used to pain.

"Bad for you that I know that you lie." Said Ibiki smiling menacingly as he considered his options, this was a tough customer and finding a key to get to him was challenging. "So what is the purpose of Cursed Mark of Heaven?"

"As I said earlier it gives po..." Tried to say Kabuto, but fist crashed into his bloodied face before he had a chance to finish it. Breaking his nose in another place, it was probably broken in more than two or three places.

"You lie, both of us know that." Said Ibiki as he moved closer to Kabuto, his bear-like looks helping to intimidate when he needed that. Like in this situation, but it seemed that Kabuto wasn't impressed by it. Ibiki didn't say a word, he only turned around and walked out of the cell.

"He is all yours." He said to Inoichi who stood in the corridor "Either he is a fanatic or he fears Orochimaru more than he fears us."

"Good thing that we have Tsunade-sama to heal him if we need." Said Inoichi as he walked into the cell, ready to start another round of interrogations which excluding a lot of frustration bore almost no fruit. Anko started and excluding breaking couple of bones and causing couple of wounds she reached exactly nothing, he tried after her and he had more luck, but still not much. It looked like a very, very long day in T&I. Good thing was that they could rotate while he was their only subject that didn't have much rest and was almost constantly exhausted.

o-0-o

"Very good." Said Hiashi approvingly as he watched spar between Neji and Hinata, while she lost it, it was by a very, very small margin and compared to earlier it was a huge leap in her performance. She was more confident, more firm and more determined in combat, while Neji lost some of his hatred aimed at the Main Family, it was still there, but not as big as it used to be few weeks or months ago. "You did almost no mistakes and you should be able to pass into second round without too much of a trouble. I showed you all of our most prized jutsu, but you still need to work on them, so from now on during those session we will focus on mastering them and getting you more used to them."

"As you wish" Said at the same time Neji and Hinata, lightly bowing to him. Father/Uncle or not, he was still head of the family and they needed to show him respect.

"Hiashi-sama you have a guests." Said one of Branch Family members that appeared on the porch that was running around this whole training ground.

"Who?" Asked Hiashi without turning back as he was still focused on Hinata and Neji

"Tsunade-sama and Naruto."

"Show them into my study." Said Hiashi turning around "Retrieve those scrolls and bring them there. Hinata I would like you to join me there."

o-0-o

"So how may I help you?" Asked Hiashi as he looked at Naruto and Tsunade who were seated across the table and so far they only exchanged pleasantries about how good was his tea and that's all.

"Kaa-san left you some scrolls that she intended to give me." Said carefully Naruto. "They were about Uzumaki Kekkei Genkai and more advanced seals."

"Indeed she did so." Nodded Hiashi and looked curiously at Naruto "And you want to get them back?"

"If it is possible than yes." Said Naruto "As some of those things would be useful for me."

"You will get them." Said Hiashi and at the same time through the doors entered one of branch family members carrying three thick scrolls, he looked at Hiashi, who indicated Naruto, who grabbed them and placed them on the floor to his right.

"Thank you Hiashi-sama" Said Naruto bowing lightly.

"I also have a matter to discuss with you." Said Tsunade as she also looked at Hinata "I would like to train Hinata for the remainder of the time before the exam and afterwards as she has an aptitude for medical ninjutsu and already has your knowledge of human anatomy."

"I see" Said Hiashi and looked at his eldest daughter and Heir, who so far was quiet. "Hinata, what do you think about it?"

"I would like to be trained by Tsunade-sama." Said Hinata as she looked at her father

"Since she wants I won't block her from it." Said Hiashi as he looked at Tsunade "You have my full blessing to train her and I will handle clan elders so they will stay silent."

o-0-o

Jiraiya watched as Naruto was working on mastering Suiton and Doton jutsu to get them to as small amount of seals as possible, so they could be a deadly weapon for him as not many expected someone to use more advanced jutsu with just three seals. He saw one attack after another slam into rocks that were targets used by Naruto and watched as one by one they were slowly turned into dust as force behind those attacks was huge and it would kill many people if they went against them. While he knew this kid was scary, seeing it firsthand was a completely different experience and he winced in sympathy with those poor rocks that were turned into dust by those attacks that slammed into them, one by one.

He wished he had the same amount of control over various natures of chakra as he needed to use mostly full chains, while this kid was able to use maybe one fifth or one forth of required seals. Jiraiya only shook his head in disbelief and decided to show a trick or two to Naruto, including his personal jutsu that were rather annoying for enemies as they didn't expect hairs to be a weapon.

"That's enough for now!" Said Jiraiya as he looked at Naruto who finished jutsu he was launching and turned his attention to Toad Sage. "I want to show you some of my personal creation, jutsu that are really useful and not known to many."

"What are they?" Asked Naruto, who was rather intrigued by those words.

"Based on hairs, one is protective, while second is more of the weapon." Said Jiraiya as he got full attention of his student.

o-0-o

" _Katon – Goryuka no Jutsu!"_ Was heard all over the training ground as Sasuke exhaled another stream of fire shaped like a dragon, while training with Itachi was a painful experience it was paying off. His chakra capacity shot through the roof and learned a lot of various jutsu, along with things that could be used against various opponents. While he still didn't like what Itachi did to their clan he was starting to once again trusting him as it was obvious his aniki cared about him. While it was in a very specific way, he certainly did that and he appreciated that.

"Very good." Nodded Itachi when he saw fireball exhaled by Sasuke, while he still thought that teaching Naruto was more fun, he actually enjoyed teaching Sasuke how to be a better ninja. Even if his brother had problems with accepting the fact that he wasn't allowed to use Sharingan excluding when training genjutsu or shurikenjutsu as Itachi was trying to show him how to fight without that eye, which was just a tool. Powerful and fancy thing, but just a toll that should be used careful and with great care. "Looks like you finally mastered this jutsu. Next is _Katon – Dai Endan_ "

Sasuke didn't say a thing as he was exhausted, sweat dripping from his forehead and his whole body aching from training that Itachi put him through, he only nodded at those words and focused on whatever was left of his chakra. He flashed through a chain of handseals that was now extremely familiar to him, shouted _"Katon – Dai Endan"_ and exhaled another fireball that charged across the field and hit the posts in front of him or more properly charred remains of them as various fireballs were hitting them for past three weeks.

"You are improving rapidly." Said Itachi as he saw that jutsu "While you are a long way from mine or Naruto level, you improved a lot during those past three weeks and we still have three more for training."

"I know" Said tired Sasuke as he plopped down onto the ground, every single cell of his body screaming in pain from the strain it was put under. However his training was paying off massively, he could see he was faster, stronger and more agile than he was before and wanted to see how much distance was between him and Naruto.

"For today that's all." Said Itachi "Tomorrow we will work some more and later we will work on strengths and weaknesses of all of people you can meet during the exam, so you know them and have outlines of strategies prepared for them. There are several rather dangerous ones, not to mention Naruto so you need to be careful with how you fight."

"Who do you mean by that?" Asked Sasuke looking at his brother.

"First and foremost Sabaku no Gaara, Naruto probably told you a thing or two about him." Itachi calmly said "And couple more from Kiri or Kumo."

o-0-o

"I wonder on who I should bet." Said Hana as she looked at the list of genin that qualified for finals of the chunin exams. There were many exceptional ones, especially considering how they were chosen this year, in rather bloody way.

"There is only one good choice." Said Tsume as she was looking at her own list. In front of her was laying a thick folder filled with various sheets of paper, notes and other things about one person, getting full version of this folder was a challenge as not many jonin had access to it. "You know who I mean."

"Of course." Nodded Hana as she reached the same conclusion and looked for one name on the list, a little surprised to find it so low. "Senju Naruto, although I wonder why he is ranked so low."

"Because this list is created by various genin and civilians, because higher ranking ninja are betting or are their sensei and would have personal gain in it." Explained Tsume and gave Hana two folders "Read them and compare, one of them is on the level accessible to genin, second is full one."

Hana nodded and quickly skimmed through both folders, when she opened first one she was surprised by a small amount of things in it and quite a lot of it was impossible to read, as it was classified and was on a higher level of access, probably on chunin or even jonin. Heck, even some mission reports were missing or were only mentioned with references to other places and files, some of them referring to the highest level of access.

"There is nothing excluding most basic things." She said as she closed first folder.

"Exactly" Nodded Tsume "And now you see why they place him so low, they simply don't have enough data to place him higher. On the other hand his full jacket..."

"Is rather interesting." Finished for her Hana "No wonders it is classified so highly, some of those things are borderline treason and some are illegal."

"What are you talking about?" Asked Kiba "I thought I heard someone talking about something illegal."

"We are considering on who to bet." Said Tsume "And talking on a difference between different levels of access to classified things."

"And on who are you betting?" Asked Kiba

"Senju Naruto" Said Tsume looking at her son, whose eyes narrowed a little "For two reasons, I'm his godmother and he has the best chance to win the finals."

"How?" Asked Kiba, not believing that Naruto was so strong.

"Let's see." Said Tsume opening one folder "He was trained by ANBU Tora for four years before he graduated as a genin, two years as an apprentice under Uchiha Itachi, training with Nara Shikaku, Hokage-sama, as a genin training under Hatake Kakashi on a genin team with Uchiha Sasuke and Hyuuga Hinata, later under Sarutobi Asuma and Maito Gai. Training under Senju Tsunade and Gama Sennin Jiraiya. Any more reasons?"

"N-No" Managed to stutter shocked Kiba as he didn't expect his friend to be so strong or to have so famous teachers.

"I think that you are the first person that silenced him without shouting at him." Said Hana when she saw her little brother silent. He was usually easily silenced by her or their mother, but it usually required raised voice and here it happened without it.

"It seems so." Nodded Tsume "I wonder how strong he will be once Tsunade-sama and Jiraiya-sama are done with him. Also he asked for our ninken and I think I found nice pack of them for him."

"Which ones?" Asked Hana with some interest as she was the one that usually took care of pups that were in kennels, along with fully grown dogs.

"Kuromaru triplets." Said Tsume "They will be good companions for him, they are fast and are extremely good trackers. They will be also quite a big when they will be fully grown."

"Breed used by ones that want to serve in oinin or ANBU." Said Hana after a moment of thought "Considering that he is going to work with ANBU due to his new position, not a bad choice, not a bad choice. I would even said a really good one."

"I was thinking about the same thing." Said Tsume "I told him that his performance in chunin exams will be crucial, but that was to give him reason to perform as best as he can. While our dear elders didn't have any problems with giving him those ninken. Especially once they saw the same folder you saw."

o-0-o

Inoichi once again entered the mind of Sakura, this time focused not on looking for data, but on tearing apart those manipulations made by dozen of people as they were still checking remaining few that still needed to be questioned and probably executed once they were done with them. He looked around her mind, searching for any fake memories, signs of used genjutsu and warped images that could be rather easily destroyed without too much of a harm to her mind as it was a slow and careful process. While from inside of her mind he could do quite a lot, a lot also depended on her willingness to free herself from influence of those things and from what he managed to see her common sense and mind was fighting foreign influence but needed help in doing so.

" _I might as well bring Ino to help me with fixing her mind, those two knew for a long time and considering where her mother is right now she will need to stay in out compound for some time to cope with new reality and to fully heal."_ Mused Inoichi as he focused on mind in front of him and tearing apart those warped images that weren't as firm as rest.

Good thing was that Tsunade-sama managed to clean her body out of all of those toxins and drugs relatively quickly and rather painlessly, thus helping them with the whole process as her mind and common sense could work as they should. But even without those drugs it was a long and hard process, one that was going to take them a lot of time, at least for him it was a pleasant break between one session with Kabuto and another as that fake genin was still not very willing to cooperate.

Good thing that nobody noticed absence of that genin team during second stage as they were caught by ANBU during time for genin to prepare for second stage and in their place was put another team, one of those failed ones, who didn't even ask question when they heard they were going to a chance to take in second stage. While they joined rest of genin, Kabuto and his team-mates were invited into damp and uncomfortable cells beneath T&I so they could be questioned. While cracking those team-mates was an easy and quick task, they provided almost no data to those that interrogated them, they only knew who Kabuto truly was and that was it. For more data they needed Kabuto and so far they got a lot of gibberish and frustration during sessions with him.

It looked like they were going to have an interesting time in T&I with him as they were struggling to crack him open and they might simply ask Itachi to use Tsukoyomi on him to get him to crack and allow them to get data out of him, but nobody was sure if it was a good idea.

o-0-o

"Naruto is incredible." Said Shizune as she sat with Tsunade, while Naruto was training with Jiraiya his chakra natures. "He managed to learn most of things about poisons and antidotes in matter of days, when I thought it would take him weeks and months to teach him it."

"He isn't genius per se, but he has two things that will beat every genius." Said Tsunade "Drive to accomplish his goals and he is diligent. When many would say that something is impossible to achieve without trying, he would do that for the sake of annoying them. He reminds me a lot of Minato-kun, they are really similar. Naruto has fiery temper of Uzumaki clan and their ungodly amounts of chakra, but other than that he is a carbon copy of Minato."

Shizune nodded and looked at those two as they were sparring, it looked somewhat even and it was hard to tell who was better in it. While it was obvious that Jiraiya was holding back, he wasn't holding back massively and was giving Naruto a challenge. "No wonders Hokage-sama wants him as his potential successor when he will be ready. He needs to learn a lot, but he is doing that and with good advisors he could take that hat in few weeks or months."

"Yes" Nodded Tsunade "While the plan is that he should take the hat from sensei, I talked with sensei and Naruto and in case that sensei is going to get killed either I or Kakashi will be a Hokage until Naruto will be ready, while in meantime he will get more and more responsibilities. Leading ninja, easy negotiations and so on. So that he can get into the position with me being one officially in charge. But also so that he can finish his training."

"Makes quite a lot of sense." Said Shizune "Sandaime was fifteen when he took the hat, in the middle of the war, Yondaime was eighteen when he did the same right after a war ended. He is thirteen right now and he needs to mature somewhat before it. Everybody knows he is a powerful ninja, but he needs to mentally mature to take the job. Itachi is a good influence on him and he would make a fine advisor, but civilian council will eat them alive."

"You nailed it." Said Tsunade with a thin smile "Civilian council is the biggest issue right now and they will be for a long time. That's one of the reasons of this Kage summit, so that other Kage knows who is supposed to be in power and so that they can know to who to speak when dealing with us. Otherwise council might try something stupid."

Shizune looked at her shishou with narrowed eyes as she didn't expect her to be so well-versed in Konoha politics. "I thought that you hate politics and all of those political games?"

"Oh, I hate them" Assured her Tsunade "But I know how to play them, there is an advantage of having your grandfather and great-uncle as Hokage, not to mention your grandmother as princess of Uzushio. Along with your sensei as Hokage, you tend to learn quite a lot of things even when not paying attention to what they say or do."

"Even if you hate them, you are rather good in them." Said Shizune carefully as she knew how fiery was temper of Tsunade and nobody ever attempted to temper it, while Naruto had similar one, he had much better control over his emotions and angering him was much harder.

"As I don't like to admit it, I am." Nodded Tsunade "Recently I was forced to get back my old skills in them as sitting on council meetings is tiring and you need to see through every single word that was spoken during the meeting."

o-0-o

"Are you slacking off?" Asked Naruto as he moved pieces across shogi board and preparing to finish the game. He was playing with Nara Shikamaru, one of his first and best friends and one of few people that could provide him a challenge in shogi.

"No" Said Shikamaru as he looked at the board, thinking how to counter those moves. They were extremely good and hard to beat. "It seems that you have improved."

"No, I think you are slacking off." Said Naruto looking at the board, but deep inside he knew he got better, a lot better in tactics and strategy as last few evenings and nights he spent with Itachi working on theoretical, but very real scenarios. How to organize defense when taken by surprise, how to storm the village and so on, he preferred them much more to simple shogi as they were more challenging and unpredictable.

"So how is going your preparations to chunin exams?" Asked Shikamaru once he moved his piece across the board, countering recent move made by Naruto.

"Almost done" Replied Senju "Which means that I will have a week or so to do completely nothing."

"Lucky you." Muttered Shikamaru "I don't know why, but Tou-san made training much more demanding."

"Maybe because you were slacking off." Suggested Naruto and ducked under strike coming at his head. "On the days of finals you will need to be patient as they will take some time to start."

"Why?" Asked Shikamaru as he simply wanted to get over them and he didn't enjoy being more troubled than necessary.

"You will see." Said Naruto "But I can tell you that I won't be with other participants at the beginning."

"You know that I will get that answer out of someone?" Asked Shikamaru tilting his head lightly as he looked at his troublesome friend. He did one thing that was one of the worst things he could do, that is piqued curiosity of Nara.

"Perhaps" Nodded Naruto "But not many know, excluding four ANBU that are hiding around us, the most senior ninja, Ero-sennin and Baa-chan not many know."

"There are ANBU around us?" Asked Shikamaru, causing Naruto to laugh at those words.

He stopped after a moment and looked at Shikamaru, somewhat sorry expression on his face "They are my guards and follow me wherever I go. Just in case."

"Oh" Said Shikamaru as he tried to find those ANBU.

"Your father probably has his own protection detail, I don't know for sure, but he should have one. After all he is a jonin commander and one of the highest ranking ninja." Said Naruto

o-0-o

"How do you feel about Naruto?" Inoichi asked as he looked at Sakura as they were sitting in now much more comfortable cell than before as she was moved to ones occupied by hostages and so on inside of T&I and more of cell it looked like an apartment.

"He is just a distant friend." She said after a moment, her expression changing for few times as her emotions thought about it.

"You don't want to kill him?" He asked after a moment checking if she still had those fake memories or was influenced in some way.

"No, why should I?" Asked Sakura a little confused about that question.

"Good, very good." Inoichi nodded and looked at Sakura "I want to talk with you about your mother. She was executed for what she did and buried in unnamed grave."

When Sakura heard those words she paled as realization hit her, in unnamed graves were buried only traitors. "What did she do?" She quietly asked through sobs.

"Many bad things." Said Inoichi "I talked with members of my clan and if you want you can live with us. Ino would be happy also as she is one of your closest friends."

"I think I will accept." Said Sakura and Inoichi only nodded at those words.

 **A/N – Clarification about Naruto and Toads, Jiraiya earlier said that Naruto can summon battle Toads, as he knew he had enough chakra and control to do that, but he never summoned them. Here he is starting summoning them.**

 **Reviews:**

" **I love it! While there are grammar mistakes its not enough to make me annoyed. I get the jest of what is being said. Plus the polish quotation marks are easy to ignore. I wonder how pedosnake is gonna react when he realizes the curse mark is gone" – I try to spot all of those grammar mistakes, but it is hard and I'm lazy so some escape**

 **Let's say he won't be amused when he will discover that something isn't working as it should be.**


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N - Some of the things might seem a little weird, but they will reveal in following chapters why they happened or what is their meaning. Plot bunny appeared in my mind about mixing Harry Potter, little bit of Marvel(Asgard and Nine Realms) and PJO. I might bring something or nothing. So far it is a rough sketch.**

Whole time that Naruto had for preparations passed and now it was a time for arrival of other Kage for Gokage summit which would be in a day. He stood to the right of Sandaime Hokage, behind whom stood his guards Tsunade and Jiraiya, behind Naruto stood Uzuki Yugao and Yamato as his own guards, mainly for show as he was more than capable of fighting on a good level, but some people could use daggers or other less obvious methods and having two bodyguards helped with that.

"They're coming." Said quietly Hokage as he gazed forward and spotted cloud of dust, along with familiar chakra presence growing rapidly. "It's Raikage and his guards."

"Yes" Nodded Darui who arrived two days ago and was trying to coordinate with Konoha shinobi preparations for the exam and expected attack right after it. He was also there to control some Kumo genin that tried to start brawls and weren't on their best behavior. But when he appeared in their vicinity they almost instantly started behaving as they should and listened to him.

"Hokage-dono" Said politely A, Yondaime Raikage as he stopped in front of Sandaime Hokage, his own guards behind him.

"Raikage-dono, welcome to Konoha." Replied Hokage as he looked at leader of Kumogakure no Sato "You are first to arrive."

"I thought that this midget from Iwa would be here sooner." Sais A as he looked around and spotted Naruto "He is son of Kiiroi Senko, isn't he."

"I don't know what are you talking about, Raikage-dono." Said Hokage as he was shocked by such bluntness of Kumo leader and lack of enmity in that voice.

"Of course you don't know." Laughed A "After all you completely accidentally started personally training him, along with his birthday and how he looks."

"Point taken." Nodded Hokage "Since you guessed all of this I think we can say only truth. Indeed he is their son."

"I won't attack him." Said A "I'm not my father, who was a little bloodthirsty and caused us a lot of troubles. So we are waiting for Kazekage, Mizukage and Tsuchikage?"

"Kazekage said he had a problem in the village and he won't be present during the summit." Said Hokage "He sent an envoy and he said he is going to be for the finals."

"There are still Mizukage and Tsuchikage." Said Darui as he interrupted them as he spotted Mizukage getting close. "Mizukage-sama is actually quite close."

"Baa-chan" Quietly whispered Naruto as he got attention of Tsunade "Control Ero-sennin as Mizukage is quite hot, literary as well and she could burn him if she wanted to."

"I will try" Nodded Tsunade as she looked towards direction from which came Mizukage and her two guards, when she took a better look at her, she completely agreed with Naruto. After that she looked at Jiraiya "No peeping or I will beat you, heal all broken bones and do that again. Is that clear?"

"Hai, hai" Quickly said Jiraiya as he noticed certain look on Tsunade face that meant danger and he didn't want to test his luck with her in such mood. He did that once and it didn't end too well for him, in fact it ended badly, really badly. Multiple broken bones and bruises all over his body.

"Mizukage-dono welcome to Konoha." Said politely Sandaime Hokage as Mizukage stopped in front of Hokage, her guards half a step behind her.

"Thank you." She replied "I hope we will be able to finish talks about alliance and that our villages can live in peace."

"I hope we will be able." Nodded lightly Hokage and looked into the sky, trying to find last person.

o-0-o

"So Kazekage-dono didn't arrive." Said Onoki as they were seated in one of conference rooms inside of the Hokage mansion.

"He didn't." Nodded Hokage "He said he had some issues with the village or shinobi."

"Typical excuse." Muttered Onoki as he used it more than dozen of times, not to be present during one meeting or another.

"Anyways" Said Hokage as he looked at his fellow leaders, some of which sent weird looks at Naruto, who was seated to the right of Hokage. "I announce Senju Naruto as my Heir and he is my future successor, so all official correspondence should be addressed to him."

"Third Hokage from Senju clan." Said Onoki as he heard those news "It will be interesting time and long one as well as he is young. But Hokage-dono isn't he a son of Kiiroi Senko?"

"Yes, he is." Nodded Hokage "But I discourage you from sending assasins after him. It won't be tolerated."

"Kage are always out of question in case of assasins." Said Onoki "I won't authorize any mission against him that will be designed to kill him."

"Thank you, Tsuchikage-dono" Nodded Hokage and looked at other Kage who quickly assured him of adhering to the rule that assasins shouldn't be sent against Kage.

"Yet, I don't think this was a sole reason for this meeting." Said Terumi Mei, Godaime Mizukage.

"No, it wasn't." Agreed Hokage "Akatsuki is on the move and they target jinchuuriki for some unknown reason. From what I know they will start moving in between two and half year and three years. In few months they will check position of each jinchuuriki. My spies in the organization returned recently to the village."

"Who were they?" Asked A with narrowed eyes.

"Same, Karasu show yourself." Said Hokage and two ANBU landed behind him. "Take off your masks."

When they did so eyes of other Kage widened as they saw Hoshigaki Kisame and Uchiha Itachi standing there. Like nothing at all happened and they had Konoha hitai-ate on their foreheads.

"I see that you recognized them." Said Hokage with a thin smile, not recognizing them was hard as they were rather famous, not to mention wanted by quite a few villages.

o-0-o

"It went rather well" Said Naruto as he leaned against the railing of one of balconies of Senju compound.

"It did." Nodded Tsunade who was also standing there. "They didn't scream bloody murder and seemed to accept the fact you are named sensei successor."

"They didn't have much choice." Said Jiraiya "They could disagree, but nobody would care about that."

"Yes" Agreed Tsunade looking at the sun hiding behind the horizon as they were speaking.

"Those exams will be interesting." Said Naruto "I wonder how strong will be Sasuke during them as Itachi is rather good sensei."

"Quite strong." Said someone from behind them. "He is really good in Katon and Raiton, also his kenjutsu might surprise you."

"Itachi" Said Naruto as he turned around and noticed Itachi standing behind. "Do you need to always try to scare me?"

"Now, but I like it." Said Uchiha "Annoying you is a nice thing."

"Maybe for you" Huffed Naruto as he once again focused on the sun.

o-0-o

Preparations fot the attack were in full swing and currently Naruto was standing with Shikaku, Itachi, Kisame, Jiraiya, Tsunade, Darui, Mangetsu and Ao over table with maps of the village as they were planning deployment of their forces.

"Crucial will be securing the walls and making sure that they aren't breached." Said Shikaku "If they will need to enter through the gates or will need to attempt breaching them we will be safe."

"I will go there with Bee and half of our forces." Said Darui "We mainly use Suiton and Raiton jutsu which are going to be helpful with dealing with whatever enemy will have."

"What about second half?" Asked Shikaku

"They are yours to command." Said Darui

"Kiri no Shinobigatana Schinchinin Shu will be deployed as a whole and your task will be to protect civilians." Said Shikaku as he looked at Mangetsu and Kisame, who temporarily joined them and was dusting off his old skills.

"So basically clear the streets from whatever is coming?" Asked Mangetsu.

"Yes" Nodded Nara "And protect civilians. Next Naruto."

"Yes?" Asked Naruto as he looked at Shikaku.

"Yamato and Itachi with their squads will be with you." Said Shikaku and Naruto nodded. "Also you can override orders of Konoha shinobi."

"I suspected that much." Said Naruto as he heard those words.

"Your task is to take care of Suna jinchuuriki as peacefully as possible, do not kill him, unless forced." Said Shikaku and Naruto nodded.

Shikaku once again focused on maps and looked at Ao "Kiri shinobi will be deployed at each gate and you will need to hold them. Expect summons and various experiments of Orochimaru."

"Will do" Nodded Ao "Any exact orders about counterattacks?"

"Be careful with them and stay close to gates." Slowly said Shikaku, who turned to Jiraiya and Tsunade "You know your duties, stay with Hokage at all times and deal with Orochimaru."

"Hai" Nodded Jiraiya and looked at the map. "Where are we placing ANBU?"

"One group and Sharks will be deployed in the forests behind the Hokage Monument, second and Storm will be placed around clan districts and last one around stadium. Some as undercover agents and some as Naruto guard and some hidden under genjutsu." Said Shikaku as he indicated each spot on the map. "Jonin and chunin will be briefed later today about their deployment, but generally chunin will be tasked with holding the wall and arena, jonin will be used to start counterattacks."

"They know there is a summit so maybe we will be more open about our forces?" Suggested Naruto "Kumo and Kiri will stay hidden until the attack, but rest would be more visible, not all of them, but some."

"It has some merits." Said Shikaku as he looked at Naruto "But confident enemy and one that thinks he will surprise his prey is easier to catch unprepared. If they would start suspecting that we know something about their plans, they might terminate them or change them. And we don't want to be surprised by them."

"I see" Nodded Naruto as he looked at the map. It was a sound plan, but he still wanted to display some force.

o-0-o

"So he still doesn't want to talk?" Asked Ibiki as he looked at Anko.

"No" She sighed "He is either really stubborn or has a lot of things to tell us."

"Perhaps we should invite Itachi to help us?" Suggested Inoichi

"It won't hurt." Nodded Ibiki "As Itachi has a gift to convince and we need that data."

"I will speak with him." Said Anko "He is booby trapping forests with his brother and Naruto so our guests can be warmly welcomed."

"Okay" Said Ibiki carefully as he knew their love for explosives and fire. "Other than him any luck with cracking others?"

"Most of them are talkative." Said Anko "But they don't have too much useful information, only some mentioned that their lords wants data about Senju Naruto and his parentage."

"Not again." Sighed Ibiki as four years ago he was dismantling one plot after another and was chasing after numerous spies all over the Konoha. If he remembered correctly it was around of twenty plots, sixteen ended dead and four found that Konoha wasn't a good place to stay.

"Yes" Nodded Anko

"As a reward you will chase all of them and throw them into some cell." Said Ibiki as he looked at her, causing her to nod quickly. Nobody liked to see the _look_ as it was called by some.

o-0-o

"Impossible" Muttered wide-eyed Shikamaru as he couldn't believe what he was seeing, it seemed that Naruto beat him once again and he did that quickly.

"I think I won." Cheerfully said Naruto as he just finished winning the game, much to the irritation of Shikamaru, who didn't like to lose, at least not to him.

"You are right." Nodded Shikamaru "Once again?"

"If you insist." Said Naruto as he started putting back pieces in order.

"How can you beat me so easily?" Asked Shikamaru, who knew who his friend was, but he was still impressed by him.

"Practice." Simply replied Naruto "Playing shogi and planning how to execute an attack or how to defend having set amount of assets and certain intelligence. I'm pretty sure Itachi could give your father run for his money."

"After all Itachi was youngest ANBU Captain and is youngest ANBU Commander." Said Shikaku as he entered the porch "ANBU Captain at thirteen, ANBU Commander at eighteen. Kakashi was Captain at eighteen and Commander at twenty-one."

"And he was the one that gave me this." Said Naruto as he rolled up the sleeve, where was visible ANBU tattoo which caused raised eyebrows of Shikamaru, while Shikaku brows only furrowed and his eyes narrowed. "I'm not ANBU, but I have this so I can keep track of other ANBU and summon them to my position if I would need them."

"Good to know" Said Shikamaru as he made first move.

o-0-o

"Naruto is better than incredible." Said Jiraiya as he leaped into his sensei office. "He is downright scary, I knew he could sail shaky waters of politics, but I never expected him to play so good against other Kage."

"Well, I trained him well and he learned a lot." Smiled Hokage as he thought about those endless hours spent on teaching Naruto about diplomacy and why it was crucial. If he was going to be honest with himself, he would say it was better than Sannin.

'Yes" Nodded Jiraiya "I wonder how good he will be during the exam."

"We will see." Said Hokage looking at his old student "He should advance to the finals, assuming they will proceed as planned."

"I expect as much from my student." Jiraiya said and looked outside the window.

"Who is training him right now?" Asked Hokage as he thought that Jiraiya should be with Naruto.

"Itachi and he are catching up on their skills." Stated Jiraiya "And I don't want to approach them as they almost burned my arm when I got too close."

"They were always good when fighting together." Said Hokage "Not at the level of Madara and Hashirama, but I would say close to it and they will make scary team."

"Yes" Agreed Jiraiya "Another generation of Sannin is in the making. While I didn't believe that they will manage to be as good as we were. Kakashi is doing a really good job with that team of his and they will be as good as we were in our prime or even better."

"I would say they will be better." Said Hokage "Naruto has mastery of five elements, Sasuke two and from what I heard from Itachi he is considering checking him for third once exams are over, Hinata has only one, but she has her taijustu and medical ninjutsu. Genjutsu wise Naruto and Sasuke together can create some scary things and none of us was good at this art. Tsunade could be, but she chose being a medic."

"You are going to promote all of them to chunin even if they will be knocked out in first stage." Bluntly stated Jiraiya

"Yes" Nodded Hokage "Naruto is in his own league and he will get the same rank as Hokage so other two only, but yes to chunin."

"Makes sense." Said Jiraiya "Keep them as a team and let them get better together. If I were you I would add Itachi to the team, he works really good with Naruto and is able to control temper of Naruto and Sasuke. Also Kakashi would appreciate second reliable jonin to support him as we know they will be used to make a statement to our more and less friendly neighbors."

"I will consider that." Said Hokage as he leaned in his chair and considered those options. "Itachi is currently a Commander of ANBU and getting him out of it won't be a problem as he can get the same privileges as Kakashi has and he could be a good addition to that team."

o-0-o

On the day of finals to Konoha was arriving stream of various foreign dignitaries, nobles, leaders and their courts as they wanted to see what this generation of shinobi was going to present as well as to make more or less discreet deals with various other nobles.

When it was exactly nine in the morning Shikamaru was looking around a little annoyed as he didn't expect Naruto to be late for such thing.

"Did you see Naruto?" He asked looking at Sasuke who changed a lot during those six weeks, he was still broody, but he was way more opened to people and more warm, not stone like he was previously.

"No" Said Uchiha as his eyes kept scanning the people. "He said he will have quite an entrance."

"You better see who is standing in the Hokage box." Interrupted them Ino as she was looking at the Hokage box.

"Whoa" Said Tenten when his gaze followed Ino and noticed Naruto standing close to Hokage, he was wearing white and red haori and on his head rested same hat that was worn by other Kage, he was wearing same hat as Hokage which was a little confusing for them.

"The hell he is wearing?" Asked Shikamaru "He isn't being made Hokage, is he?"

"I don't think so." Said Sasuke, trying to keep his calm facade, yet it was cracking as he didn't expect that.

o-0-o

"It seems the show is starting." Said Tsume as she saw Naruto close to Hokage and with same hat on his head. "I can't wait to see people reaction."

"What are you talking about?" Asked Kiba, until he followed her gaze when his jaw hit the floor as he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

"He is going to be named Sandaime Heir, isn't he?" Said Hana as it was an open secret in jonin circles as everybody was talking about that.

"He is" Confirmed Tsume "Yesterday it was announce to clan heads."

"How?" Sputtered Kiba when he heard those words, they sounded unreal enough as it was.

"He has the best lineage out of all possible candidates." Patiently explained Tsume "He is great grandson of Senju Tobirama, great grand nephew of Senju Hashirama, cousins few times removed of Uzumaki Mito, distant cousin with Itachi as marriages between Uchiha and Senju were common, son of Namikaze Minato and Uzumaki Kushina."

When she said those words Kiba's jaw almost hit the ground as he didn't expect that his friend was from one of noble clans and had so good lineage.

"And those are only his connections with shinobi clans." Said Hana

Kiba turned around and looked at her with a look that could be translated as "What do you mean by that?"

"Did you sleep through all of your history classes at the Academy?" Asked annoyed Tsume and sighed as she though how to put those things into words. "Uzumaki clan was not only shinobi clan, they were also Daimyo of Uzushio and as such marriages between them and other royal families were rather common. Daimyo-sama is his third or second cousin as they share same great or grandmother."

o-0-o

Naruto looked around in awe as he stood in Hokage box, on his head same hat that Hokage wore and to his right Hokage while all around them stood other Kage and their bodyguards who would be also witnesses to it as such thing rarely happened with foreign dignitaries. He saw crows cheering as they saw their leader and many tried to guess the identity of person that was wearing the same hat as Hokage was.

Hokage raised his hands and slowly everybody stopped talking and focused on him as they waited for him to speak about something, many of shinobi guessed it was related to that person standing close to him with same hat as he was wearing.

"It gives me a great pleasure to officially announce who will be my heir and successor in the future." He loudly said, using chakra to make it even louder. "I officially name Senju Naruto, son of Namikaze Minato and Uzumaki Kushina as my Heir and Successor in due time he will take the mantle from me."

When Hokage finished speaking Naruto removed hat from his head and everybody could see his long mane of golden hairs, same as Yondaime Hokage freely moving in light morning wind. His blue and green eyes glowing with power as he watched the people who were shocked by that announcement until they started cheering as they couldn't recognize demon container in him.

o-0-o

"Impossible" Muttered Sakura who was sitting with Yamanaka clan who allowed her to live with them to fully heal her mind. "I knew he dreamed about this, but I never expected him to see him there."

"It was an open secret among higher rank jonin and ANBU who was going to be Sandaime-sama heir." Said Inoichi as he looked at her "Question was only when and how it was going to be announced."

o-0-o

"Is it only me or security is tighten?" Asked Kakashi as he looked around, officially he was looking at Naruto, while in truth he was counting ANBU. "Twenty ANBU, four full squads."

"Those are only visible ones." Said Asuma as he lightened one cigarette from previous one "I'm not that good at spotting them, but ten more are under genjutsu hidden among the stands and further ten are in the competitors box."

"Aye" Nodded Kakashi as his eye narrowed when he gazed at ones hidden in the box "Commander is Captain of one of those squad, second is under Deputy Commander, they are not normal ANBU. They have full plate armors."

"Hokage Guard?" Suggested Asuma, referring to elite unit inside of ANBU, one tasked with protection of Hokage and his heir.

"Aye" Nodded Kakashi "They are here to protect Naruto, or should I say Naruto-sama."

o-0-o

"So that's what he meant by not being here at the beginning." Said Shikamaru "Troublesome Senju."

"You knew that he will be named Heir?" Asked Ino with narrowed eyes as she was as surprised as civilians, which was a shock for her as she didn't think her sources would know nothing about Naruto.

"I suspected as he was on Gokage summit, can detect ANBU, has tattoo given to ANBU or high rank ninja so they can get ANBU to their position if they need them, knowledge of all kinds of seals, nukenin and time he spent with my Tou-san."

"Itachi-nii also suggested that there will be something related to Naruto today." Added Sasuke "Also amount of time those two spent training is little frightening."

o-0-o

"I think you should join other participants on the ground." Said Hokage as he looked at Naruto.

"I will" Nodded Naruto as he handed Hokage his hat and jumped onto the sand of the arena.

"Since everybody is here we can start." Said proctor looking at them "Before we will begin the tournament sixteen pairs will be drawn for the fights of the first round."

Their attention turned to a display that was placed in one of walls as their names on it were quickly circling until they stopped and formed sixteen pairs.

"First fight will be between Senju Naruto from Konohagakure no Sato and Yuki Haku from Kirigakure no Sato." Announced proctor as he looked at genin "Fighters stay, rest to the competitors box." He waited until everybody was gone before he looked at Haku and Naruto. "You fight till I say it's over, your opponent is knocked out, dead or forfeits the match. Is that clear?"

"Hai" Both of them said at the same time.

"Hajime"

o-0-o

"Interesting match I must say." Said Itachi as he canceled genjutsu and appeared to Sasuke right in ANBU armor, his mask in hand.

"Aniki what are you doing here?" Asked Sasuke as he looked at Itachi "And why are you wearing plate armor."

"Stupid tradition that Kage or his heir should have guard at all times and I was chosen to shadow Naruto. But going back to the match, Naruto has his Kekkei Genkai, she has Hyoton."

"Hyoton?" Asked Ino

"Kekkei Genkai that mix Suiton and Fuuton chakra to get ice, if used in proper way, deadly, very deadly." Explained Itachi "Hard to destroy and not many people know how to deal with it."

o-0-o

"Yuki clan? Aren't they extinct?" Asked Jiraiya who was one of Hokage guards and watched closely that leader of Kusa as he looked and smelled somewhat familiar. They knew that Orochimaru would be close, question was who he would be as he would need to be in this box to get to Hokage.

"Almost" Sadly nodded Mizukage "There is small group of them that survived, same as Kaguya clan. They were almost killed by Yagura, but he was stopped before they were slaughtered to the last man."

"Interesting match." Mused Tsuchikage as he looked at Naruto and Haku "Naruto chakra feels a lot like Shodaime Hokage, like they had more in common than just being relatives, I can't exactly guess what is it, but they're similar."

o-0-o

"I wonder how much we will get." Mused Tsume "Now everybody is rushing and placing bets on Naruto, but they won't get as much as we did. I'm also curious how much power he will show."

"Remember that he needs to be careful as too much power and every nukenin will be hunting him." Said Hana

"Yes" Nodded Tsume "He will be either A-rank or S-rank threat in all Bingo books, no wonders that he is usually seen with ANBU to discourage potential assasins."

"Why?" Asked Kiba

"Because he is soon going to take that hat and that is a rule to place all Kage as at least A-rank shinobi." Patiently explained Tsume. "But usually they are S-rank as most of them have small detachment of guards that easily bump the rank to S.

o-0-o

Naruto and Haku were simply staring at each other, waiting for other to make a move and attack first. It was game to see who was more patient, less nervous and in better control of himself. As they were doing so warm breeze was felt and leaves were lightly rustling as no other sound was heard by them.

Naruto hand flew to his holster grabbing kunai from it, coating it in Fuuton chakra and launching it at Haku, as it flew all around it chakra was visible. Once it got close to Haku Naruto used quick _Kawarimi_ to substitute kunai with himself and appeared in front of Haku, leg extended forward and glowing blue from gathered chakra. As it slammed into Haku her body turned into water and Naruto leg flew into the ground below making fissure upon impact as gathered chakra was released.

" _Mizu Bunshin_ " Muttered Naruto as he looked around, scanning arena for any threats "I should suspect as much from Yuki clan member."

Before he could say much more he was forced to duck as he felt several senbon flying towards him, rolling out of the way of them he saw several needles passing through the place he occupied just a moment ago.

"That was close." Naruto said as he looked around and tried to find Haku, he saw something that looked like her moving through the shadows of the trees. He smiled when he spotted her as he knew she couldn't hide for an eternity and that was her first mistakes. He flashed through a couple of seals and shouted " _Doton – Doryūdan!_ ", in front of him formed large dragon head that was spewing out hundreds of balls made out of mud.

But that was only beginning, Naruto flashed through another chain of seals, shouted " _Katon – Karyūdan!_ " and exhaled stream of fire that coated those balls of mud. Thus making them far more deadly, as they soared through the air many shinobi looked at him in wonder as he just used two jutsu that jonin usually knew.

When they impacted trees, they punched holes straight through the barks and branches of them, setting them on fire in the process and stopped on the wall behind where they created small holes. Haku used quick _Kawarimi_ to get out of that trap and appeared on the sands of the arena looking at Naruto.

o-0-o

"How many affinities have this kid?" Asked Kurenai as she stood with Kakashi and Asuma, who exchanged glances, as if they knew something, yet didn't want to talk about this.

"Five" Said Kakashi "But he prefers three of them, Doton, Suiton and Katon."

"Did he use shorter chains?" Asked Asuma as he looked at Kakashi "Normally they require forty-four seals each and that takes a lot of time, yet he did that in a flash."

"He did, four and eight."

"How good he truly is?" Kurenai asked as she looked at Kakashi

"Good enough to spar with Itachi and give him run for his money."

o-0-o

"So Yuki clan." Said Naruto watching Haku "Owners of Hyoton Kekkei Genkai which requires Suiton and Fuuton, prefered style of fight is to use senbon and other assassination techniques, along with Suiton and Hyoton jutsu. Believed to distant cousins of Uzumaki and Hozuki clans due to their mastery of Suiton jutsu. Did I miss something?"

"How do you know so much?" Asked Haku, curiosity visible in her voice.

"I learned about every important clan, fighting styles, strengths, weaknesses, famous shinobi, jutsu, Kekkei Genkai and so on." Explained Naruto "Maybe we should get this started?"

Haku only smiled and started flashing through the chain of handseals, length of which activated every alarm bell in Naruto head as he knew that the longer was the chain the more dangerous was the jutsu. She shouted " _Hyoton - Makyō Hyōshō!_ " and he was surrounded by a dome made out of ice mirrors...

o-0-o

 **A/N – Sorry for another cliffhanger, but it was too good of a moment. You won't get pairs until I decide to reveal them. I'm shocked that nobody guessed about that thing sealed on Naruto arm, I thought that some of you would bother and try to guess it. I believe that Itachi at least once told what is it.**

 **Reviews:**

" **Hinatits is too weak to be in team 7. Kill yourself, virgin." – Than who? Sakura is a fangirl and almost plunged knife into Naruto throat and as such he would be a liability during fight as well as dead weight that would slow them down. Ino is a part of Ino-Shika-Cho and that formation works really well, another nope. Hinata was a little shy, but that was mainly because of two things Juuken as she was struggling with it and partially family. On the other hand she is a better person for the team than either of mentioned above as she gives them tracking abilities and powerful close range fighter. Sakura would give exactly nothing as she doesn't have anything useful and well, she isn't able to cast genjutsu powerful enough to support them. Kakashi and Sasuke know ones used through Sharingan and Naruto has spades of ones developed by his ancestors or ones showed him by Itachi.**

" **Very good. So there is invasion and the third died, so tsunade will be hokage then naruto. I like it. Keep going. Updatr soon" – That is or maybe was a plan, what will happen we don't know or you don't know.**

" **finally sakura has been free.. naruto will be stronger by the time the finals come.." – Indeed, how strong he truly is, is showed in this chapter and in next two. Also task given to him shows how powerful he is.**


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N – Pairs for fights will be announced during the tournament, assuming they will fight every single one of them.**

"Not again" Said Naruto when he saw those mirrors "Once was bad enough." Before he could say much more he was forced to jump out of the way of senbon that flew from one of those mirrors. He landed on the ground and looked around, his senses at full alert as he was looking for incoming attacks.

o-0-o

"He is trapped in that sphere." Said Sasuke folding hid arms as he leaned closer to get a better view.

"He is" Nodded Itachi "But not for the first time, was had a run in with Kiri team and one of them used that jutsu and we needed to get out of this."

"So who will win?" Asked Ino

"Hard to say" Said Itachi as he looked at them "Naruto has much more jutsu at his disposal, but she has much better position. Mind says Naruto, experience says wait and see as the match unfolds as many shinobi were able to surprise audience during such exams."

o-0-o

"Let's see how strong it is." Muttered Naruto as he considered his options, he had a lot of them as he knew how to get out of this trap, executing it was far harder and dangerous. He jumped out of the way of the next volley and once back on the ground he charged at nearest one, fist glowing with chakra.

When Naruto fist connected with the surface of the mirror there was a fine net of cracks as he broke it and it momentarily turned into a rain of ice shards that flew in all directions. It was just enough to get him out of the trap.

Haku canceled the jutsu, salvaging as much chakra as possible and jumped away from that Konoha genin that smashed through one of those mirrors, using his chakra and muscles only. Feat she thought was impossible to achieve as they were believed to be extremely hard and were able room survive multiple hits from various jutsu without a problem.

o-0-o

"Or he can simply smash through the mirror." Muttered Itachi as he saw Naruto smashing one of those mirrors. "I expected him to use Katon and Fuuton combo, but that will also work quite well."

"How strong he is?" Asked Sasuke as he looked shocked as he couldn't believe that Naruto did what he did.

"So strong that I try to avoid blocking direct strikes. One broken arm was enough for me."

o-0-o

"Tsunade what were you teaching him?" Asked Hokage as he turned in his seat to look at his student standing to his right and slightly behind.

"How to fully use his perfect chakra control." Explained Tsunade "Itachi added a thing or two, how to effectively open Hachimon, genjutsu and how to place them and so on."

"Hyuuga would be dead by now." Dryly stated Jiraiya "Even _Kaiten_ wouldn't protect him for long. And Kami knows that he didn't use too much ninjutsu."

o-0-o

"That was unexpected." Said Kakashi when he saw mirror bursting into millions of shards and Naruto disappearing in burst of speed. "I knew he was strong, but not that strong."

"Interesting solution I must say." Said Asuma "Although he seemed more annoyed that scared when he saw this jutsu."

"Because he got trapped in it few years ago, he and Itachi were snooping around Kiri, they run into a team from Kiri with Hyoton user and got trapped in it. From what I remember they used mix of Katon and Fuuton to free themselves from it."

"He wasn't genin than, what the hell he was doing near Kiri?" Asked Kurenai

"Getting experience and learning how to work in field." Shrugged off Kakashi "He has more S-rank than your average chunin, heck even some tokubetsu jonin would have less."

o-0-o

Haku landed on the ground and away from Naruto so that she could have space for dodging and starting her own attacks from a safe distance, as she knew that getting close could kill her rather easily, as she saw him smashing through the mirror without a single problem. She mentally checked her supplies, she had over three quarters of her chakra, almost all senbon and was a little winded.

Naruto rummaged through his pouches with supplies, considering what he had, he had more than enough shuriken to last for a long time, two dozens of kunai, his swords and option of summoning Enma or other monkey as a bo staff. He also had almost full chakra stores and wasn't tired, which meant he could bid his time and play the game to tire out his opponent.

Naruto looked at Haku and started flashing through a chain of handseals, preparing to unleash his favorite jutsu. When he went through the whole seven seals he needed, he shouted " _Suiton – Suiryudan no Jutsu!_ " and in front of him formed large dragon made out of water that charged at Haku.

When she saw the dragon, her eyes widened as she didn't expect to see someone using three natures and in each one of them so strong jutsu. Her mind kicked into overdrive and she scrambled out of the path of the charging dragon to avoid being hit by it. She watched as it charged towards the wall against which it slammed and caused quite a big crater in it.

Once she was on the ground, she grabbed handful of senbon and sent them towards Naruto, forcing him to dodge them as one or more hit wouldn't kill him, but could make his life uncomfortable if it hit one of his pressure points. As such hit could disable his whole leg or arm, he knew how to deal with it, but it would take precious time. During such fight every second was precious as one mistake or wrong move could cost him a victory.

Naruto made a Mi(Snake) handseal, shouted " _Doton – Doryūheki!_ " and spat stream of mud in front of him, from which quickly was created wall ten feet tall, twenty wide and two thick. Senbon the were flying towards him bounced off harmlessly, unable to penetrate it. As it was too hard and steel needles were unable to do anything to it.

o-0-o

"She was trained by oinin or Shark." Muttered Itachi "Those senbon were aimed at pressure points and other places that hit cause a lot of pain."

"How do you know that?" Asked Sasuke "Naruto also knows that, Hinata too."

"All Hyuuga know human anatomy perfectly and can strike at any of those points if they need, in case of Naruto it was Yamato and me. While Nature Fist is good, it cause too much damage and sometimes you want your enemy to be in one piece. So knowledge how to strike those points is useful." Explained Itachi as he looked at Sasuke "I will show you more useful ones once it's over as they can help you end it without killing enemy and rather quickly."

"Also Tsunade-sama helped." Said Yamato as he appeared to Itachi right, his mask in hand, scaring nearby genin as they didn't see him coming. "She taught him how iryonin fight and how to deal with one."

o-0-o

"Another coming of Nidaime Hokage?" Asked amused Onoki "If my eyes were right those were exactly seven seals and that jutsu requires what? Forty-four seals when used by normal shinobi."

"I won't deny that he has extremely strong Doton and Suiton affinities." Spoke Hokage "But you will need to learn more from him."

"In the future he is going to be a huge problem." Said Darui who stood behind Raikage back as his guard "While he is young, he already have more power than most of jonin will ever have and in few years he will be S-rank shinobi as he has maybe another ten years or something to grow."

o-0-o

Once all of those needles were on the ground, Naruto jumped out of his cover, in hands shuriken which flew towards Haku forcing her to take out one of her kunai and deflect them. When she was doing that she didn't see Naruto that used them only as a distraction and in the meantime used _Kawarimi_ to switch place with one of those deflected projectiles.

Haku felt something coming towards her head and quickly used _Kawarimi_ to get away from it, when she landed, she saw that log that she used to substitute with was torn to bits as Naruto legs crashed into and through it. Another little piece of evidence suggesting that taijustu with him was dangerous, really dangerous. Previous was presented when _Mizu Bunshin_ was obliterated into pieces.

When she landed far away from Naruto, she took another batch of senbon and launched at him, forcing him to dodge madly as he was a little surprised by those projectiles. He used _Kawarimi_ to substitute himself with another poor log that was turned into pincushion.

"How many senbons do you still have?" Asked annoyed Naruto once he dodged another volley of them. It was slowly getting onto his nerves. He didn't have patience to such tactics.

"More than enough." Replied Haku, while in truth she was thinking how to conserve her ammunition as she just spent a lot of it and had maybe thirty percent of her initial supply. Yet none of previously launched ones managed to score a hit which was troubling as her tactic was based on senbon and hitting pressure points.

Naruto dodged another hail of projectiles coming from Haku and landed on the wall of the arena, watching her from above and considering his options. He could attempt to close in with taijustu, but he risked another trap or he could attempt to use ninjutsu to do that, but he also had another option. Way better one, when he thought about it on his lips appeared thin smile.

He started flashing through a chain of handseals and when he was done, he whispered " _Kokuangyo no Jutsu_ ". When he did that and genjutsu took the effect and Haku was completely blind as it was designed to sabotage sight of the person affected by it.

o-0-o

"So he actually learned it." Mused Itachi when he saw Haku frantically moving around and being confused.

"What is that?" Asked Shikamaru

"Personal creation of Nidaime Hokage, genjutsu extremely deadly and powerful." Explained Itachi as he turned towards them. "It affects the sight and it almost completely block it, it is the only genjutsu placed on the Scroll of Seals."

"Won't our Sharingan nullify the effects?" Asked Sasuke as he looked at his older brother.

"From what I know no and it was tested few times to check it, always Uchiha wasn't able to get out of the trap."

"Terrifying" Shuddered Sasuke at the thought of his Sharingan being useless. He wasn't addicted to it, but he liked this slight advantage given by it as it was rather useful one to have. Yet during his spars with Naruto it didn't matter as he was repeatedly trashed into the ground by his blonde friend.

"Yes" Nodded Itachi

o-0-o

Haku was slowly starting to panic, she couldn't see a thing and it was freaking dark all around her, she knew it was a genjutsu, but she wasn't able to break it. Which meant that it was a powerful one, really powerful one as only such were able to resist most of attempts at breaking it. She focused on her surrounding and heard sound of some sort of blade coming towards her body.

Using her sheer instinct she brought her kunai to block it and once it was deflected, she jumped away to get some distance from Naruto as she expected more strikes to follow. She was indeed correct as moments later she heard sound of another blade cutting through the air and flying towards her. She managed to raise her kunai to block it, yet at the same time she felt another blade lightly pressed against her neck.

"It's over." Naruto said with a blade pressed against Haku neck.

"I forfeit." She said knowing well that blade could kill her at the moment notice.

"Winner Senju Naruto." Announced proctor and looked at the screen with the next pair of fighters. "Uchiha Sasuke and Tobio."

o-0-o

"I must say I'm impressed by what they showed." Said Kazekage as he looked at other Kage "Naruto-san showed impressive mastery of various jutsu, including couple of your Nidaime Hokage personal creations. So for me he deserves the promotion to chunin. On the other hand Haku-san didn't show that much jutsu, but she showed how you can fight using mainly weapon and try to tire out stronger enemy."

"Naruto-kun showed what he was supposed to show." Said Hokage "While Haku showed quite a wide variety of abilities and knowledge, yet it was obvious she would lose as Naruto was too strong for her."

"He is on completely different level." Said Onoki as he thought about Naruto "Not many will give him a challenge as he is simply too strong for the rest of the competition. He showed only a glimpse of his true power, yet we all know he has much more."

o-0-o

"So Sasuke got a civilian to fight." Said Naruto as he landed next to Itachi.

"Yes, he should handle him without any problems."

Naruto only laughed at those words "You said you could handle me and you landed in the hospital with chakra exhaustion and broken bones."

"Not everybody has your ungodly amounts of chakra." Itachi scoffed as he didn't like being reminded about his own lost spars "I have above average jonin levels, but compared to you it's not that much."

"Let's focus on the match." Suggested Naruto turning and looking at the arena below them

o-0-o

Sasuke landed near the proctor and looked at his opponent, Tobio was quite tall and looked like a brawler, on his hip was usual holster for kunai and to his back was strapped some sort of blade. He was wearing gray pants and dark blue sleeveless t-shirt, his arms were covered in bandages.

"You know the rules?" Asked proctor in his bored voice and they only nodded "Hajime!"

Sasuke jumped away from his opponent launching several shuriken as he did so, as to force his enemy to dodge them or deflect them instead of focusing on an attack. Tobio took out his own kunai and started deflecting projectiles flying towards him and at the same time he watched Sasuke, curious what he was going to do.

Sasuke landed on the ground and started flashing through a chain of handseals, when he was done he shouted " _Katon – Endan!_ " and exhaled single fireball that charged towards Tobin who jumped out of its way.

Tobio landed on the wall of the arena and looked at Sasuke, he flashed through a couple of seals and when he was done he shouted " _Suiton – Mizurappa!_ " and exhaled thin stream of water that charged towards Sasuke cutting through a couple of trees that were on his way there.

Sasuke eyes widened a little when he saw that stream of water getting closer and closer to him, cutting everything on its path. He didn't think too much about it and jumped out of it way ans towards Tobio as to limit usefulness of such attacks as they were mainly useful over a longer range. At short range they were semi useful as there was a chance to use other arts to counter it or even interrupt before it was started by breaking a chain of seals before person was able to finish it.

Sasuke flashed through a chain of seals, shouted " _Katon – Ryuka no Jutsu!_ " and exhaled dragon shaped fireball that charged at Tobio, forcing him to dodge or counter it with other jutsu. He counted on him using one of Suiton jutsu to counter it and thus allow him to get closer using steam as a cover for his moves.

Tobio flashed through a chain of handseals shouted " _Suiton – Suiheki!_ " and exhaled stream of water that created protective wall around him and met fireball charging at him creating a lot of steam and mist. Which was a thing for which Sasuke was waiting, when he saw steam forming he disappeared in a burst of speed, only to appear to Tobin right from where he slammed his fist into him.

Tobio managed to deflect the blow, but it still hurt and he replied with his own kick to the abdomen, which Sasuke grabbed with his hand and replied with a punch that crashed into Tobio chest, dazing him a little as he buckled under the strength of this blow. Moments later it was over as Sasuke managed to slam his hand into his opponent head, knocking him out.

"Fight goes to Uchiha Sasuke." Announced proctor as medics came in ready to examinate Tobio, who laid on the ground unconscious.

o-0-o

"Not a bad fight." Said Naruto as he looked at Itachi "His mastery of Katon is your doing?"

"Yes, he is rather good at it and learned how to use it to create distractions."

"He might have problems against Gaara or me as Gaara will use his sand and I will fight fire with fire."

Itachi only chuckled at those words. "Last time we burned few training grounds when fighting using Katon."

o-0-o

"Kakashi what were you feeding your genin?" Asked Asuma as he looked at what Sasuke was doing and earlier Naruto did.

"Nothing." Kakashi shook his head "Naruto was trained by Jiraiya-sama, Tsunade-sama, Yamato got some time with him and later he demolished few training grounds with Itachi. Sasuke is mostly Itachi doing, I gave him only some tips about Raiton manipulation and a jutsu or two."

"It will be interesting to say the least." Muttered Asuma as he eyed them carefully.

o-0-o

"Konoha is full of surprises today." Said Kazekage as he watched the exams below them "And the last Uchiha seems to prove that he is good."

"He is good." Agreed Hokage albeit reluctantly, there was no point in too much of showing off "After all he was trained by his brother."

"Uchiha Itachi was training him?" Asked shocked Onoki "I thought he was a wanted criminal with quite a hefty bounty on his head."

"He was pardoned by Daimyo-dono few weeks ago for what he did in our service and the fact that we need to have Sharingan in our ranks." Explained Hokage as all of them agreed not to mention about what they were talking during the summit. "And now he is reinstated to his previous rank that he received before his defection."

"I see." Said Mizukage as she looked at Itachi who was standing near Naruto as if those two knew each other well and were on good terms. "Did you see Hoshigaki Kisame?" She asked turning to her left and looking at Hokage.

"He is also one of our new shinobi." Replied Hokage with a small smile on his lips.

o-0-o

"Next fight will he between Hyuuga Hinata and Sabaku no Kankurou." Announced proctor as he looked at another pair on the list. When he did that among the crowds broke out muttering as they were considering chances of both people.

o-0-o

"It will be an interesting match." Said Hiashi as he moved to be more comfortably seated in his seat and have a better view of the arena. He was seated among the elders of his clan with his family in one of better boxes that were placed around the arena. It wasn't as good as one where were seated leaders of villages or various Daimyo, but it was good enough.

"You think your daughter will win with him?" Asked one of elders, insults almost palpable in his voice.

"He should easily do that." Coldly replied Hiashi and turned to Hanabi. "Watch how your sister fight, she uses completely different version of Juuken."

Hanabi was going to say something, but was cut off by one of elders. "You taught her that style?"

"Yes, I did." Replied Hiashi as he turned around furiously, glaring at that elder. "I'm clan head and her father, I can do whatever I wish. You are to advise me, not to rule."

"As you wish, Hiashi-sama" All of them chorused, trying to avert their gaze from him.

o-0-o

"Itachi-nii can you see if that bundle on his back has any chakra inside?" Naruto asked as his sensor abilities weren't picking up anything.

"No" Said Itachi with a frown "There is no chakra inside of it."

"Interesting." Muttered Naruto as he considered possible implications of that fact as there weren't many.

"You think about the same thing as I think about?" Asked Itachi, Sharingan in his eyes blazing and looking at that bandaged bundle with a mop of brown hair at the top of it.

"Yes"

"What are you talking about?" Asked Shikamaru getting closer to them.

"Puppet" Stated Itachi like it was supposed to explain all things. Yet it only caused raised brows from genin that stood nearby. He sighed before answering the question, they were supposed to cover it during the Academy. "Puppetry is a specialty of Sunagakure no Sato, they arm them with various weapons, poisons, blades and so on and use chakra threats to control them remotely. The biggest weakness of it, is user of the art as he can't really defend himself."

"So basically kill the user and puppets are useless." Stated Shikamaru getting a smile from Itachi.

"That's correct."

o-0-o

"So Hinata against one of the Kazekage children." Said Kakashi "It will be an interesting match, she should be able to deal with him as she is rather good at taijustu and her ninjutsu is nothing to scoff at."

"He is a puppeteer so he can give her a challenge as he might be able to keep her at long range and use poison and various senbon." Countered Asuma

"Hinata is a member of Hyuuga clan and her Byakugan will give her a huge advantage over him as she will be able to spot him easily and she should be able to cut the links connecting the user with his puppet."

o-0-o

"Interesting duel, I must say." Said Kazekage when he saw who would be fighting "My oldest son against heiress of your Hyuuga clan. If I remember correctly the same one that Kumo tried to kidnap."

"Those weren't my doings." Said Raikage "My council did this behind my back and without my agreement. Also those were completely different times than current ones."

"I already accepted your apologies." Said Hokage as he looked at Raikage

o-0-o

Hinata and Kankurou jumped onto the arena and looked at proctor who stood in the middle of it. He nodded at them and said "Hajime" jumping onto the wall at the same time. Hinata charged forward, surprising Kankurou, forcing him to jump away from her as he couldn't allow her to land a single hit or he would be doomed as Juuken correctly used was deadly.

She tried to get closer to him and she almost got him when her strike hit the wall where his head was seconds ago, she jumped away and looked around the arena. Moments later she was forced to jump out of the way of senbon barrage that passed through the place where she was moments ago.

She easily spotted puppet and a place from which it was firing, she ducked under another barrage of needles and struck it, her fist glowing with chakra. When she did that puppet fell into hundreds of pieces as the chakra was released at exactly one precise moment, forming a stream of it that impacted the wood and caused destruction.

o-0-o

"He is done" Muttered Itachi when he saw what happened to the puppet "There is no chance that he will win the match, he doesn't have a puppet and without it, he is rather useless."

"I think you are right." Agreed Naruto as he looked onto the scene below, Hinata was turning into a very powerful kunoichi and rather scary one as well. "She has all the aces in her hands, there is no chance that he will win this match."

o-0-o

"That was a bit unconventional, but nonetheless it worked." Said Hyuuga Hiashi as he saw the puppet being turned into a shower of splinters. "It seems that the idea of Tsunade-sama training her was a good one."

Hanabi looked at her older sister a little shocked by what she did, she knew that Hinata was strong, but she didn't know that she was so strong that she was able to trash such puppets into hundreds of splinters.

o-0-o

Hinata looked at Kankurou who was stupefied by what just happened and barely dodged out of the way of strike coming at him when Hinata charged at him, her fingers glowing with chakra. Sign of Juuken strikes being prepared, one of the most dangerous taijustu styles that existed. Touch in a good place was enough to disarm opponent or kill him, depending where and how strong it was.

He clumsily jumped away as he was used to fighting using puppets and taijustu was his weak point, one of few he had, so when the next strike came he barely blocked it with his hand and felt that it wasn't able to move. "What did you do?" He shouted angrily.

"Closed one tenketsu." Replied Hinata, smiling sweetly "You are in my field of divination."

"What is the meaning of it?"

"That" Said Hinata as her body entered the opening kata of one of the most famous taijustu attacks. " _Hakke Rokujūyon Shō_ " When she said those words onto Kankurou landed flurry of strikes, each of them aimed at one of his tenketsu and closing it. Thus disrupting and blocking flow of his chakra as without all tenketsu chakra wasn't able to freely move around the body of ninja. When multiple ones were closed he could be dead or loss consciousness, depending on ones closed. In this case it was the latter as she closed those that weren't lethal.

Unmoving form of Kankurou landed on the hard and unforgiving ground of the arena as his body was unable to respond to what brain was telling it to do. Proctor appeared on the arena and looked at him and later at Hinata. "Winner Hyuuga Hinata!"

He waited until medics took Kankurou out of arena before announcing next fight. "Next fight will be between Hozuki Suigetsu from Kirigakure no Sato and Kurotsuchi from Iwagakure no Sato!"

o-0-o

 **Reviews:**

" **Sakura is miles and miles better than Hinatits who has no talent. She is the worst tracker in her team and sucks at her family jutsu so she got kicked out of her clan. She is shy, a stalker obsessed with Naruto and has NO personality. Sakura is the strongest most powerful kunoichi in the world. Are you saying Kishi can't write his own manga? Show some respect." – I like playing with trolls so I will answer this one, rest will be deleted. Is she the strongest one? Tsunade, Terumi Mei, Uzumaki Mito, Uzumaki Kushina, Temari are also pretty strong and most of them would ate Sakura in straight duel. Let's see who Sakura defeated on her own. In part one some thugs, in second on her own she beat no one. While Terumi and other Kage managed to stall Madara, Kushina was strong enough after giving birth and having Kyubi ripped out of her to trap him and allow Minato to seal him.**

 **This is fanfiction so canon can, but mustn't be taken into account.**

" **Cool chapter of cool story. Dont bother answering to "hinatits" trolls, they only want to be a pain in the arse." – I know, but I like playing with trolls, it's fun and relaxing. Even more than shouts of enraged users that found themselves banned for breaking rules.**


	18. Chapter 18

A/N - Updates from now on will be at random intervals, school year had started and I don't have much time and it will be only getting worse as it is the last year of high school and that means exams at the end of it.

Sorry for a short chapter, but I wanted to wrap up the battle or at least most of it, what the hell happened with Kage will be revealed later.

o-0-o

"It will be an interesting fight." Stated Itachi as he saw who would be fighting "On one side Yoton Kekkei Genkai, on the other Hozuki Kekkei Genkai based on water and kenjutsu."

"She is granddaughter of Sandaime Tsuchikage?" Asked Naruto

"She is." Nodded Itachi and looked at Naruto "And he is younger brother of Mangetsu and probably an apprentice of one of Kiri no Shinobigatana Schinchinin Shu."

Naruto was going to reply, but his earpiece buzzed #Enemy groups spotted approaching Konoha, distance to the walls five kilometers# When he heard that he looked at Itachi, who slowly nodded.

#Do not engage. Observe and trail them.# Quietly said Naruto into a microphone that was a part of his earpiece. It seemed that someone had itchy fingers and wanted to start this show early which wouldn't change too much.

o-0-o

"It seems that they decided to increase stakes and are impatient." Muttered Shikaku as he looked at the map showing deployment of their and enemy shinobi in Konoha and outside of it. So far there was way more of ones representing their or allied shinobi than enemy ones. But enemy ones were quickly added as more and more of them entered the range of sensing sphere, yet were unaware of the fact that their positions were known and Konoha was only waiting for them.

"I must agree." Said one of Deputy Commanders of ANBU "Karasu and Tora are with Naruto-sama, Same is awaiting with reserves. Our shinobi are deployed and we need enemy to sprang a trap."

"Yes" Nodded Shikaku "Start discreet evacuation of the most important buildings, Hospital and the Academy have the highest priority. Inform guard of Daimyo-sama that we expect troubles."

"It will be done." Said one of jonins that were in the room and quickly left the room to start the evacuation. It would take a lot of time, if they wanted to do it discreetly and without informing everybody that it was happening.

"When evacuation will be mostly done, pass a message to Hokage-sama that we spotted enemy approaching walls. He will probably trigger invasion and we will engage them in open combat."

"As you wish, Shikaku-sama." Nodded one of ANBU that was in the room.

o-0-o

Umino Iruka was in the middle of the lecture when doors into his class opened and through them walked in jonin with katana strapped to his back. He looked quite grim as his eyes scanned the room.

"Umino-san, evacuation protocols have been activated by Shikaku-sama and I'm here to help you with it." He said as he looked at the chunin who sit behind his desk.

"Of course" Nodded Iruka as he knew or at least suspected that something fishy was going on as ANBU were everywhere and also those shinobi from Kumo and Kiri that were hidden inside of the village. He stood up and looked at his class "Follow me."

o-0-o

"So Shikaku activated evacuation protocols." Mused Itachi as he looked at Yamato and Naruto "It seems that invasion will be sooner than we think."

"We expect it to happen during my fight with Gaara." Said Naruto "But it might be sooner."

"It shouldn't be sooner as they need a distraction and Gaara will be a good one."

"You know that the plans can change in a matter of minutes." Warned him Yamato "So nothing is sure, be careful and watch out for enemies as they might attack at any moment now."

"I know that." Muttered Itachi, flexing his muscles and making sure all of his weapons were easy to access.

o-0-o

"Something is definitely going on." Muttered Kakashi as he looked around. He was briefed about the invasion, but he wasn't in charge of dealing with it. "Another Deputy Commander of ANBU just appeared. And they do not appear in public without a very good reason."

"Yes" Agreed Asuma as he saw that ANBU in cream colored cloak landing near one of already deployed ANBU Captains and whispering something into his ear. "Shikaku is in charge, so we can safely assume that he will make good decisions."

o-0-o

" _Suna shinobi are approaching the village"_ Whispered ANBU into the ear of Hokage whose eyes narrowed as he heard those words. He took a deep breath and looked at Kazekage. "Kazekage-dono could you explain what are doing your shinobi approaching the walls of my village?"

Orochimaru who was disguised as Kazekage froze in fear, it seemed that Konoha knew about his plan and they were ready to deal with it. He didn't say a word and only dropped a smoke bomb in the Kage box, while grabbing his sensei and jumping with him onto the roof of the stands. Followed by rest of Kage and Hokage bodyguards.

o-0-o

"Shit!" Cursed Naruto, slamming his hand into kunoichi from Suna and throwing her against the wall. He looked at Itachi and saw him in the middle of duel with Suna jonin. Rest of his ANBU guards appeared and engaged enemy. "Yamato, evacuate genin when you are done with enemies. I will subdue Gaara."

"Hai" Replied Yamato, who was in the middle of a duel with Kusa ninja.

"What is going on?" Asked Shikamaru as he ducked under kunai swipe from Ame jonin.

"Invasion" Replied Aoi who cut in two shinobi from Ame that tried to attack Shikamaru "Ame, Kusa and Suna allied with Orochimaru and that is what is going on."

Naruto looked around, watching as ANBU were swiftly cutting down enemy shinobi that were still alive in the box. His musings were cut short when he heard roar that froze his blood, it came from Gaara who was slowly changing into Shukaku.

"Fuck" Naruto cursed as he charged at Gaara, slamming hands into his side, trying to push him outside of it. So that he could safely fight him, without too many genin nearby. "He is changing into Ichibi, Sasuke get genin out of here and far away. Here is too dangerous for you, Ushi protect them."

o-0-o

"So invasion started sooner than we thought." Said Kakashi, his katana already covered in blood as he slayed few shinobi with it. He stood back to back with Asuma, few dead enemy shinobi laying around.

"It doesn't look that bad." Noticed Asuma "ANBU is cutting them down."

"Indeed" Agreed Kakashi and saw a thing he didn't expect to see. Half-transformed jinchuuriki of Ichibi flying towards the middle of arena followed by Naruto. "Oh, shit. That might be a huge problem."

"What?" Asked Asuma and noticed the same thing "Yes" He grimly said, bijuu were always a huge problem, when fighting off enemy invasion they were even bigger than always as you were focused on two things at the same time.

o-0-o

Gaara slammed into the surface of arena, Naruto landed nearby, his eyes scanning the battlefield and watching his enemy. He knew he needed to deal with this issue as fast as possible or he might need to deal with released bijuu and that was always fun.

Naruto started flashing through a chain of handseals before Gaara had a chance to react and when red-haired teen from Suna got back onto his feet, he heard " _Suiton – Suiryudan no Jutsu!_ " and watched as giant dragon made out of water slammed into him. Drenching him and his armor in water, as well as pushing him backwards.

"Not bad." Muttered Naruto as he looked at Gaara, who seemed to be pushed onto defensive. Not giving him a chance to react, he grabbed hilt of Raijin no Ken and channeled chakra through it. Charging forward, he aimed to damage Gaara arm, so that it would slow him down and stopped his concentration.

o-0-o

Group of Kusa and Ame shinobi was running through the main street of Konoha when they saw in front of them seven shinobi, standing as if nothing was happening and battle around them wasn't important. On arms of those shinobi rested various kinds of swords and they seemed to know what to do with those toys.

"Fun has found us." Said one of them, turning to face them and allowing them to see his face, which was blue.

"Indeed" Nodded another one of them as he turned around, giant butcher knife in his hands. "Let's show them why we are feared."

"With pleasure." Agreed third one, needle like sword on his arm. He swinged it and looked at them. All of them started flashing through exactly the same chain of seals and moments later was heard. " _Kirigakure no Jutsu!_ "

Thick mist, through which seeing was almost impossible as well as sounds were dampened descended onto the street, covering it and everybody who was there. Shinobi from Kusa and Ame started shivering from cold and fear as they knew they were trapped and everything depended on the mood of their enemies as they could be simply slaughtered, without a single loss on enemy side.

One of them screamed as blade tore his arm open, splattering blood and tissue everywhere around it, he didn't have too much time to shout as the next strike opened his chest, blood and pieces of organs flying all around the place. He didn't have too painful death as this strike also cut his lungs and heart in half. Rest of the group paled as they didn't see enemy face, they only saw that giant blade appearing out of nowhere and cutting one of them almost in half.

o-0-o

Gaara roared in pain as he felt Raijin no Ken getting buried in his arm, he looked and saw his blood flowing from the wound, cause of it jumping away, droplets of blood dripping from his blade.

"BLOOD! MY BLOOD!" Roared Gaara, tendrils of sand shooting towards Naruto "I WILL KILL YOU SENJU! MOTHER WILL HAVE YOUR BLOOD!"

"Crap" Muttered Naruto as he rolled out of the way of one tendril and incinerated second with ball of flames. He watched more and more of chakra pouring from his enemy tour and swirling around his form, covering him in even thicker layer of it.

" _Kit, he is changing into Ichibi, do something quickly or you need to deal with overgrown tanuki that is crazy and loves destruction."_ Said Kyubi in Naruto mind, who only nodded as he also sensed spikes of bijuu chakra.

" _Any suggestions?"_ Asked Naruto as he flashed through another chain of seals, he shouted " _Katon – Dai Endan!_ " and spat out large fireball that charged towards Gaara, covering him in fire and oil that was on fire as a core of this technique was flammable oil.

" _Mokuton"_ Grimly replied Kyubi _"Or extremely powerful attacks that can exhaust his chakra."_

"Lovely" Muttered Naruto as he rolled out of the way of flaming tendril of sand that charged towards him from Gaara, who was insanely laughing as he was attacking Naruto.

" _Watch out, kit!"_ Yelled Kyubi as he borrowed control over Naruto body and forced it to jump out of the way of incoming wave of sand.

"Thanks." Muttered Naruto as he tried to catch his breath. "Let's end this." He calmed down himself and started flashing through a chain of handseals as he chanted the names of them. "Snake - Rat - Dragon - Dog - Hare - Bird - Snake - Dragon - Yin Water - Snake - Bird - Dragon - Tiger - Boar - Tiger - Snake - Rat - Dragon - Hare - Snake - Bird - Dragon - Yang Earth - Horse - Snake - Dragon - Snake - Dragon - Bird - Dragon - Bird - Dragon - Horse - Snake - Rat - Dragon - Dog - Hare - Bird - Snake - Dragon - Yin Water - Snake - Bird - Dragon - Tiger - Boar - Tiger - Snake - Rat - Dragon - Hare - Snake - Bird - Dragon - Yang Earth - Snake - Dragon - Bird - Snake." When he finished them he shouted " _Hokage-Shiki Jijun Jutsu — Kakuan Nitten Suishu(Hokage-Style Sixty-Year-Old Technique — Enclosed Hermitage Entering Society with Bliss-Bringing Hands)"_ , slammed his hands onto the ground of the arena and from it sprouted ten pillars around Gaara.

Naruto not giving Gaara a chance to react charged forward and slammed his hand into stomach of Gaara and connected them with a line of chakra. He jumped away, pulling as much chakra as possible from him, seeping off chakra of Ichibi and trying to subdue him.

o-0-o

"Good" Nodded Itachi as he spotted wood pillars around Gaara "He should deal with that issue." He was standing in the competitors box as he just finished his last fight. Bodies of his enemies were laying around.

"I'm not sure." Carefully said Yamato "He knows that jutsu and mastered it, but Gaara is on the verge of snapping and transforming into Ichibi, and that might be too much for him."

"We will see." Said Itachi as he looked around, watching how shinobi were dealing with enemy forces all over the village. "Even if he transform, he should be able to deal with that problem. While we need to support rest of our forces as Kakashi might be overwhelmed any moment now."

"Yes" Agreed Neko masked ANBU that stood nearby, blood splattered on her clothes and armor as she cleaned her blade. "We need to help them."

"We will split." Said Itachi "Yamato, take half of ANBU and attack them from behind. Rest and I will join Kakashi."

o-0-o

Sasuke landed on the roof of stands and watched the fight below as other genin stood nearby, watching out for potential threats. He was impressed by what Naruto was doing with Gaara as he seemed to be winning.

"Is that Mokuton?" Asked wide-eyed Ino as she was pointing at tendrils that grew from the ground around Gaara. They looked as if they were from weird orange or brown substance that looked like wood or something related to it. "It is." Grimly said Ushi masked ANBU "It is his trump card and that kid must be strong as he forced him to use it."

"Who is he?" Asked Sasuke "Naruto warned me to be careful around him, Nisan too."

"Jinchuuriki of Ichibi and the youngest son of Kazekage." Explained Ushi "He contains the weakest bijuu out of the nine and he can cause troubles to Naruto."

o-0-o

Naruto looked at Gaara with worried expression on his face, this jutsu wasn't working as it was supposed to be as it wasn't seeping the chakra fast enough to stop it and force Ichibi back into the seal. There was a large blast of sand and red chakra, one strong enough to shatter the pillars and throw Naruto against one of the walls. It was followed by the formation of large cloud of smoke and dust from which came roars that sounded like an enraged tanuki, huge one.

"Did he do what I think he did?" Asked fearfully Naruto as he felt immensely powerful killing intent coming from that cloud of smoke and dust as well as those roars were providing further proof.

" _Yes, he changed into Shukaku."_ Agreed Kyubi as he easily detected chakra of his sibling _"He loves Fuuton jutsu and use his mass to attack you."_

"Okay" Slowly said Naruto as he bit his thumb and started flashing through a chain of handseals, he slammed his hand onto the ground and at the same time yelled _"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"_

o-0-o

"Shit!" Cursed Ushi as he saw what was happening in the arena. "He lost control of his bijuu and now we have released Ichibi inside of the village."

"If Naruto has Kyubi." Said Sasuke getting everybody attention "Can't he try to overpower that tanuki."

"He can." Agreed Ushi "But that will mean destruction for most of the immediate area as last fight on such scale leveled good portion of Kusa during last Great Shinobi War. It can be worse than Kyubi attack all those years ago as we have other problems at the moment. So we need to evacuate and far away from it as it is getting much, much more dangerous than it was moments ago."

o-0-o

"Bee, look towards the arena." Shouted Darui as he landed near Killer Bee, jinchuuriki of Hachibi "We have released bijuu here."

"What?" Asked Bee and turned around to see tanuki standing in the middle of the arena. "Okay, that is a problem."

"A-sama is still trapped with other Kage."

"Can you deal with rest of those forces? I will help with subduing that bijuu."

"Go!" Ordered him Darui as he looked for more shinobi to kill, there were some trying to climb or breach the walls, but not many and most of them was getting engaged and killed by other shinobi that were stationed around the place.

o-0-o

 _"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"_ Naruto shouted slamming his palm onto the ground, there was a giant pile of smoke and dust thrown into the air and from it emerged huge Toad with rusty red skin with many scars adorning it. He had giant tanto in one hand, he was wearing blue and white happi vest and didn't seem to be too happy about being summoned. "Bunta, can you help me in dealing with that overgrown raccoon?" Naruto asked as he pointed at Shukaku on the other side of the arena.

"Overgrown raccoon, eh." Said Bunta until his eyes landed on Shukaku "Ichibi, mad raccoon from Suna, as much as I do not like to fight against him I will help you. By the way where are we?"

"In the middle of Konoha." Naruto replied as he watched Shukaku, his eyes looking for possible openings and weaknesses of that mountain of sand. "So we need to be careful about what and how we do or we might destroy even more land."

"Let's see this." Said Bunta as he leaped towards his opponent, blade in hand. He slammed it into Shukaku's arm, it cut through it and crashed into the wall behind it. Severed arm landing on the ground close to the rest of sand demon body.

"That clearly didn't work." Dryly stated Naruto and his eyes widened "Watch out Bunta!"

He shouted just in time as moments later Shukaku roared _"Fuuton - Renkudan!"_ and exhaled several balls made out of wind and they drilled into the wall in front of which moments ago was standing Bunta. They passed through it and crashed into the building behind it, blowing it into pieces.

"Gaki, what are your affinities?"

"All five and Mokuton." Replied Naruto "You want Katon jutsu?"

"That would be nice." Nodded Bunta before he spat out a stream of oil, very, very flammable oil. It was one of the most famous and well-known abilities of Toads of Myobokuzan, flammable oil.

Naruto only smiled and flashed through a chain of several handseals _"Katon - Karyuudan no Jutsu!"_ He exhaled a thin stream of fire that connected with oil provided by Gamabunta and set it on fire, turning it into a roaring inferno and sticking to the sand shell of Shukaku.

There were heard roars of pain and frustration that were coming from the middle of raging firestorm that quickly erupted around Shukaku, but Naruto only waited as he knew that bijuu could survive a lot of hits. His senses were right as he spotted slight movement inside of it, but he wasn't the only one that did this as Gamabunta also saw it and jumped into the air. Moments later over their previous position washed a gargantuan wave of sand that would bury and crush them alive if they would stay there.

Instead of them wave of sand crushed several trees and shrubs as well as large portion of the wall of the arena that was behind their previous position. It was getting dangerous, both to the combatants around and inhabitants of the village and it could end badly at any given moment.

"Gaki, we need to finish that quickly or it will end badly." Remarked Bunta

"I know that." Shouted annoyed Naruto and sighed as he looked at Bunta "Any suggestions?"

"I will tie him up in combat and you need to wake up his host." Said Bunta "The longer he is free the more powers he gets and the more dangerous he is getting, so we need to finish it quickly or we will have full blown crisis in the middle of the village. But for that I need something with claws."

"Got it." Nodded Naruto and prepared for another leap of Bunta who waited for a moment, choosing a perfect moment for it and he leaped towards Shukaku. Naruto at the same time moulded some chakra and without thinking performed _Kawarimi_ on both of them. In place of Bunta stood large orange fox with nine tails and huge, sharp claws.

Bunta temporarily transformed into Kyubi crashed into Shukaku and at the same time Naruto leaped off towards head of sand demon as it was a place where was body of Gaara. In Naruto's hand appeared Rasengan as he flew towards Gaara and he slammed it into shoulder of red-haired boy, ending the trance. It caused Shukaku to be pushed back into the seal and his form started falling apart into grains of sand from which it was created in the first place.

"Good job, gaki." Said massive dark-skinned man as he landed behind Naruto "I would help you, but you were doing just fine so I let you handle this guy."

"Thanks Bee." Naruto replied as he identified person behind him as jinchuuriki of Hachibi "Perhaps we should help our forces in dealing with the remains of enemy forces."

o-0-o

"It seemed that Naruto finally had dealt with jinchuuriki." Noticed Itachi when he could freely breath, without suffocating feeling of bijuu's chakra filling the air.

"He did." Agreed Yamato "We need to join him as situation here is secured and he is going into thick of battle."

"Yes" Nodded Itachi as he jumped down onto the surface of the arena and ran towards Naruto.

"Itachi" Naruto said as he saw older Uchiha approaching him "Where the situation is the worst?"

"Northern gate, botched experiments of Orochimaru are there and they have problems with stopping them." Crisply reported Itachi and looked at Naruto "You want to go there?"

"Yes" Naruto sighed as he ran hand through his hair "It is one of crucial points in our line of defenses and it needs to be held, at all cost."

Naruto didn't wait for Itachi or Yamato reply and instead ran towards northern gate which was mostly turned to rubble and debris, massive wings of it were blown to pieces and mostly they were fighting not to allow enemy to cross through that giant hole. Things that they were fighting hardly could be described as human beings as they were terribly deformed and behaved more like animals than humans.

Without thinking young Senju slammed Raijin no Ken into the chest of one and without stopping he also impaled onto it one that stood behind his target. Blood splattered onto his face and plates of his armor, but he didn't care, his mind simply muted out most of feelings, working solely on instincts and training. He ignored screams of mercy as he moved forward, slashing, stabbing and striking enemies that were all around him, pieces of their bodies hitting the ground. To his sides were moving Itachi and Yamato and behind him his whole detachment of ANBU as they helped to plug the gap in their lines and to stop the incoming tide of enemies.

o-0-o

Shikaku looked at the sensory sphere with a small smile on his lips, it seemed that Konoha plan was working and enemy forces didn't know what hit them. Naruto stopped Gaara and bijuu that was sealed in him was neutered and now he was locked deep below T&I. Kakashi and Asuma managed to clear the area of the stadium, while Kiri no Shinobigatana Schinchinin Shu caused panic among attackers that stumbled upon them as they only left a trail of bodies and blood. It seemed that it was a time for starting a counterattack aimed at the remaining forces of attackers.

He turned to the sole ANBU that was standing to his side and only nodded, that was all that ninja needed to know to start the counterattack. Plans were drawn up and it was only a matter of their execution and passing orders to ninja that would execute them.

Ones that attacked Konoha wouldn't even know what the hell had hit them once this one would be over as they were confused and shocked by the appearance of Kumo and Kiri headbands among the defenders as their intelligence told them that Konoha didn't have allies that would help them. And the confusion was the biggest ally of you when you wanted to win a battle as confused enemy was easier to make mistakes and act in rush.

Grabbing scabbard of his sword that was laying nearby Shikaku stepped out of the bunker and into the world outside, it was a time that he personally took to the field and led forces from there. Four ANBU were waiting for him and followed him into the battle.

o-0-o

"It is over." Said Kakashi, as he and Asuma joined Konoha shinobi that were pushing out enemy forces. "They don't stand a chance."

"You are right." Nodded Asuma, his hands flying on their own and blocking an attack from some Kusa chunin. "Their whole plan was based on using Shukaku to distract us and to use this moment to strike."

"Which simply means that they don't have enough troops for a long battle." Kakashi finished.

o-0-o

"Will they finally die?" Naruto asked as he removed head of one of mutants and saw as his clawed hand tried to grab him.

"They should." Said Itachi who also had similar problems "But without head and heart they won't do much."

"I guess you are right."

"Anyways, banter aside. Those seem to be the last ones that were attacking this gate. The battle is almost over and only the Hokage is still fighting. We need to regroup and see how we look, there is no point in chase as they don't know our lands and won't get away from us."

"Hokage-sama is dead." Reported one of pale and grief stricken shinobi that landed in front of them "He used some sort of suicide jutsu to take out Orochimaru arms and died in the process."

Naruto only nodded, while Itachi managed to see tears that wanted to burst out, Hokage was for Naruto sort of father/grandfather type person. So it hit him hurt, but so far he was holding together, but the question was for how long. They jumped onto the nearest building and from there to the roof of the stands which was heavily changed with scars left by various jutsu on the surface of it. In one spot on the surface of it were gathered other Kage and several more higher rank shinobi, they stood in an almost filled circle that was formed around body covered by a simple shroud.

o-0-o

Konoha was hit hard, but that traitorous attack, but it wasn't destroyed, no. In fact it was far from being destroyed and it was looking towards the future as it was licking it's wounds and preparing for a storm to come. There were several parts of it destroyed and a large part of it was heavily damaged, but the key thing, people were alive and they were far more important than some buildings that could be rebuilt. _To be continued..._

o-0-o

Reviews:

 _"I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with you where senjutsu is concerned. Naruto returned and one hit KO one of the paths of pain. Naruto taijutsu made it so that his Sage Mode chakra still hits the enemy even if he doesn't necessarily make contact. Sage mode also allowed him to become a very powerful sensor. His speed increases a lot, and his strength is Multiplied multiple times. also Hashirama used Sage Mode himself. That's how he used most of his most powerful wood Style moves. So if you believe that Sage Mode isn't that great, then why you not answer the wood Style bloodline? Because the wood Style becomes extremely powerful with sage mode. I'm not trying to put your story down, just questioning your logic where that is concerned. Anyway, good job on the story thus far n I am going to keep on reading"_ \- I kind of forgot about that fact that senjutsu is boosting Mokuton jutsu, but for now he doesn't need more power as compared to his peers he is completely overpowered. There are going to be enemies that will force him to learn senjutsu, but that is going to be later.

 _"Um... I don't dislike Sakura and her family, but not a huge fan... but they didn't meet Naruto until the sixth shippuden movie, and didn't seem so bad. Sorry... I am just one of those who gets annoyed with Sakura's mom always being the b-otch on the civilian council who always causes trouble for Naruto"_ \- Here it goes along the lines of political influence, they have certain amount of influence and no politician likes to lose it, appearance of Naruto as a Senju heir is cause of shift in distribution of power.

 _"Shouldn't kakashi ask Naruto if he can teach sasuke Rasengan? After all it is technically a Clan technique._

 _Why didn't Naruto request the Uzushio swords earlier, they are family heirlooms? Im sure that if I was in his place I would want to purchase them, he has the funds after all._

 _Final Question.. You had him display Adamantine Chakra Chains yet Naruto has never trained nor used them, why display them otherwise?"_ -

First - Kind of forgot about that, but also Naruto said that he would show that jutsu on his own to Sasuke

Second - Very simple reason, most of such blades are in possession of various clans or masters of the blade and such people aren't willing to part with their blade. Look at a Game of Thrones, no family will give away their blade.

Third - Spoiler and sort of trump card, rarely used, but useful in some cases.

 _"feed the trolls it's always fun getting them riled up. If you look at the circumstances behind the team of course Hinata would be the worst tracker on her team considering you've got a boy who's able to send out hundreds or possibly even thousands of tiny bugs that he can communicate with plus any insects within the area their in and then a boy who's got better than average senses who's also got a ninken who's able to smell even better. Sure Hinata is able to see long distances but she doesn't have as wide of an area as her two teammates. I can't wait for your next update though I'm loving this story so far even though I hate the chapters being semi short lol"_ \- she isn't that far behind, she has telescopic vision and in 359° radius which gives her better chance to spot someone than Kiba. Sure he has a ninken and sharp senses, but scent is dependant on the wind and sight isn't. Aburame are also partially dependant on wind, too strong and their bugs are useless.


	19. Interlude - Storm is Coming

**A/N - Short chapter, but it is a build-up before next few that will be longer and full of action. School is getting crazy and speed of me publishing chapters will be severely limited, excluding Prince of Asgard they will be extremely rarely. Prince of Asgard has a large stash of them ready.**

 **o-0-o**

 **Reviews:**

 _ **"I hope Naruto became the 5th Hokage. I like to see how he will lead Konoha early not later. And it doesn't make sense that he will inherit the title 3 or more years later. And also he was already named the successor. There's no need to wait."**_ **\- there is a huge difference. He needs training as nobody expected Sandaime to die so quickly and a lot of experience. Also he needs to mature mentally, he is above his age, but he still needs to grow up a bit. Being a ruler is a hard and unforgiving job that not many are willing to take, especially when at war.**

It was the day after the battle that left a better part of Konoha damaged, if not outright destroyed. In Hokage tower conference room were gathered the highest ranking ninja, leaders of departments, both councils, students of Sandaime Hokage, Naruto and advisors of the previous Hokage.

"What is he doing here?" Hissed one of civilian councilors when he saw Itachi.

"He is as a head of Uchiha and ANBU Commander." Naruto replied, his eyes were red and he looked like hell. He didn't sleep at all during last night. "I'm in foul mood today, so do not test me."

"Previous Hokage is dead and we have a war." Pointed out Kakashi "So we need to choose new Hokage as soon as possible and deal with the war."

"Sensei named Naruto as his successor." Quietly spoke Jiraiya "And I support him, he is young, but for last year he was preparing him to take the hat."

"I nominate myself." Said Danzo "I don't believe this kid would be able to handle duties of the Hokage."

"The rule is that when Hokage names his successor, there is no voting." Pointed out Hyuuga Hiashi "So I think it is pretty clear who should be the next Hokage. Hyuuga support Senju Naruto."

"Also Naruto-sama knows all of plans for war and deployment of our forces." Added Shikaku as he lifted his head of the table and looked at them "So he is an obvious choice, also we have a war and the less time spent talking the sooner we can deal with it."

"Both candidates have merits, but we chose Senju Naruto." Said one of members of the civilian council, after a moment of discussion between them. "He is an obvious choice as he single-handedly defeated jinchuuriki of Ichibi and helped to defend the village. Also we need to honor a will of previous Hokage, who named him his successor and as such Senju Naruto should take the hat."

"Kami knows that I don't want to take the hat." Naruto said "But I will accept your nomination to the position of Godaime Hokage. As you mentioned previous Hokage named me his heir and we need to honor his wishes and desires."

"We watched how you grew up and developed into a fine shinobi and leader which you are right now." Said Homura "We disagreed with Hiruzen on many things and initially we also disagreed with his choice of successor. But after watching you grow up we think that you will be a good Hokage of Konohagakure no Sato and we support you."

"Do any of you want to disagree?" Asked Jiraiya and nobody said a thing. "Than I name Senju Naruto, Godaime Hokage of Konohagakure no Sato."

When Jiraiya said those words, every person in the room kneeled in front of Naruto, showing their obedience to him.

"In the name of Konohagakure no Sato ANBU, I swear fealty to you, Senju Naruto, Godaime Hokage of Konohagakure no Sato, I swear to obey your command and to be your strong right hand in the shadows." Said Itachi, his head lowered and looking onto the floor. Other people followed him in swearing their oaths of loyalty and fealty to Naruto, thus confirming him being chosen a Hokage of this village.

"I, Senju Naruto, Godaime Hokage of Konohagakure no Sato accept and confirm your oaths as valid. You may raise." Naruto formally said and all people rose from the floor and looked at him.

"We need to organize formal coronation." Said Koharu "Naruto-sama needs to be introduced to the population of Konoha."

"There is no time for pompous and loud ceremonies." Said Tsunade "Make it simple and quick, I would suggest in three days time so that Naruto-kun can get used to his new responsibilities and duties."

"Yes." Said Shikaku "We have a war and damaged village, ceremony can wait. Everybody saw him being named Sandaime successor so they know that he is supposed to take the hat."

"I agree with you, Shikaku-san." Naruto said as he looked at the scarred jonin "As you said, we have war on our hands. I want you, Itachi and whoever you need to start planning how we can win it and rebuilding the village."

"As you wish, Hokage-sama."

"Perhaps we can reconvene tomorrow with full councils." Said Homura "There are more important meetings in smaller groups that need to take place right now."

"A very good suggestion." Agreed Hiashi and looked at him. "What can we tell our clans and people?"

"That the new Hokage has been chosen, but will be announced in three days time." Said Itachi "And that his personality is being kept secret due to security reasons."

"Yes." Nodded Inoichi "That is more than enough and it will calm most of their worries."

Hiashi only nodded and everybody minus heads of departments, commanders, Hokage advisors and his students left the room.

"Situation is dire, but we can win it." Shikaku said as he looked at Naruto. "The worst is behind us and we managed to survive their attempt to crush the village."

"How bad is it?" Homura asked

"Suprisingly not as bad as we expected it to be." Said Tsunade "Most of shinobi is exhausted or wounded, amount of dead is small. Out of whole fifteen thousand that fought, five hundred is dead and another three thousand is wounded. Other than that, Kiri and Kumo groups took some casualties, but not many."

"And we only used a part of our total forces." Added Itachi "A lot of ANBU didn't fight as they protected people or places or were as last resort defenses. Also some of jonin and chunin were kept in reserve so we have over five to seven thousand more ninja that are able to fight and that is not counting genin."

"Genin and the battlefield are not a good combination." Jiraiya quietly said "They are too weak for it and they are not prepared for the horrors of war. On a good side of things, Kumo and Kiri will mobilize their full forces and have thirty thousand shinobi ready to deploy in two weeks time."

"Taki is the most dangerous, Ame isn't far behind." Shikaku said "They have a jinchuuriki of Nanabi and she can be a problem. We have five bijuu in our hands, Nibi, Sanbi, Rokubi, Hachibi and Kyubi. Also they have their water and that can be a problem, we need to crush them as soon as possible."

"Suna can wait." Jiraiya added "They are crippled and are far away from us so they are relatively harmless and won't cause too much damage to us, at least for next few weeks or months."

"Taki, Ame, Kusa, Oto and Suna." Naruto said "That is order in which we will deal with them. Shikaku, Itachi I want plans to be done by the end of the week. Prepare more than one variant of them and take into account possible changes of situation."

"Will do." Itachi nodded and glanced at Kakashi.

"What about promotions, Hokage-sama?" Kakashi asked

"There weren't too many fights." Naruto pointed out "So use results from the second phase, exercise from before the exam and from those fights that we saw. Do it quickly as I don't have patience to deal with it."

"Of course."

"That will be all for now." Naruto said and looked at people that were in the council chamber "Everybody excluding Itachi, Shikaku, Kakashi, Jiraiya and Tsunade leave."

"What is it that you want to discuss?" Asked Tsunade as they were alone, elders grumbled about getting thrown out, but stopped when they saw that Naruto wouldn't budge.

"ROOT." Naruto said as he rubbed his temples "That organization is still alive, no matter what Danzo says about it being deactivated. It needs to be gone and soon, they were the ones responsible for the most of Uchiha clan downfall, death of Shunshin no Shisui and several other things, as well as they attacked me at least twice."

"Civil war would be a bad thing." Shikaku said "But perhaps it could get done quickly and quietly."

"What do you suggest, Shikaku-san?" Naruto asked as everybody looked at normally lazy Nara.

"Confront him about it and at the same time make strikes against his bases of operation. We know where is the most of them, if not all as we have some spies inside of his structures. He is a clever weasel and old ninja, but he made quite a few mistakes."

"That might not be a bad idea." Said Itachi "He would be unable to escape the trap and we should be able to quickly deal with the fallout. I suspect he is already working on gaining the position of Hokage."

"He wouldn't be himself if he wouldn't be working on it." Jiraiya pointed out "The things that he did are terrible and he needs to be put down, soon. Also there is a matter of Nawaki, he helped him die."

"What?!" Roared Tsunade as she looked at Jiraiya "You say that this old warhawk killed my little brother."

"He helped him die, but it's the same thing." Jiraiya said "He also gave Orochimaru samples of bodies of Shodaime, Nidaime, Yondaime Hokage and several other powerful Konoha shinobi, as well as unauthorized access to the Scroll."

"He needs to die." Naruto said as chakra crackled all around him. "He crossed too many lines. I don't care how, but he needs to be dead and soon."

"Yes." Nodded Shikaku "But we need to be careful as he is a powerful shinobi and one that many still revere so it needs to be done swiftly and if possible silently or we will have uprising."

"Or simply give him an impossible task to get done." Suggested Itachi and everybody looked at him causing him to sigh "Give him task that most likely will get him killed or at least severely wounded and we will be able to finish the job."

"That is a good idea." Noticed Shikaku as gears in his head started spinning faster and faster. "We can solve more than one problem at the same time with this, he won't know what hit him and we will get annoying person out of the way."

"Exactly." Itachi nodded "We use it in ANBU when we have troublesome traitors that are too important to remove outright."

"Find him something that will kill him and send him there." Naruto said as he rubbed his temples, massive headache coming. He never expected this job to be so hard.

"I will do that." Shikaku said and looked at Naruto. "I don't think that there are other things that need your personal attention. For today that would be all, rest can wait or one of us can get it done."

Naruto was about to protest, but after a moment he nodded. "Very well, you know you need to do. We will meet here tomorrow."

o-0-o

"What is taking them so much time?" Ino sighed "They grabbed Naruto early in the morning and he is still there."

"They need to choose new Hokage and plan the war." Shikamaru said between one yawn and another. "It is being troublesome."

"What about chunin exams results?" Chouji asked

"They aren't that important, compared to the war that we have and that we need to win." Shikamaru said.

"Well said, Shikamaru." Said Asuma as he dropped onto the ground between his students.

"So Naruto is a Hokage?" Ino asked

"I can't tell you that." Asuma said "Personality of new Hokage is a secret and will be until he will be announced to the people on the day of his coronation."

o-0-o

"I never suspected this to be so hard." Naruto said as he stood on the balcony of his room.

"It never was easy, Sandaime or Yondaime just didn't show it." Itachi said as he stood behind the back of his friend. "You are the best person for this job and we both know that. Or one of the best and one that knows all of our secrets."

"I know that." Naruto sighed "It's just that I never expected to take the hat in such situation. I thought that Jiji would live for few more years and I wouldn't be forced to take it in the middle of a war."

"We all miss him, but you won't honor him by crying over his death." Itachi quietly said as he placed hand on Naruto shoulder, he knew how Naruto felt. Or enough he had a good idea of it and he knew that he needed all the support that he could get. "I know it hurts, but you need to focus on the future. Remember Hi no Ishi and what he always told us, me, you or any other shinobi from Konoha."

"I know." Naruto said, wiping some tears that appeared in the corners of his eyes. If one would look at his eyes right now he would see not the usual cerulean blue, but cold glacier blue eyes. Ones that were focused on revenge and making enemies pay for what they did. Also normally soft lines of Naruto face became much sharper, maybe it was the sun that was hiding behind the horizon or weird shadows, but he definitely looked more serious and dangerous.

"Also you have friends and advisors that will help you." Itachi added "You can't just do everything on your own, you need to delegate some things onto your advisors and friends. Sandaime had his teammates, Yondaime had me and Kakashi, but mainly Kakashi. You need to find few that you will trust and they will know that you trusts them."

"I will think about that." Naruto said and yawned "I need sleep, I will talk more with you in the morning. Now I need rest."

"Good." Itachi nodded before disappearing in a shunshin.

o-0-o

"How is he?" Sasuke asked as he saw Itachi appearing on the porch of Uchiha compound, or what now was the compound. Most of the old one was destroyed and turned into normal district.

"Better than he was, but it hit him hard." Itachi said as he looked at Sasuke "He lost one that he treated as a grandfather and got chosen as a Hokage at the beginning of the war. He should get through it without too many troubles, but nobody knows that. He might snap or might not, now I think he won't snap, but who knows."

"You are worried about him?" Sasuke asked as he looked at Itachi, who he remembered to be a monolith, here he was showing something different.

"You know the meaning behind Oath of Brotherhood?" Itachi asked and Sasuke nodded. "Than you also know why I'm worried about him. But also he is the best chance of a good Hokage for a long time. I would prefer him, than Tsunade or Jiraiya, they are too old and Kakashi isn't the best."

"I see." Sasuke said as he looked at the sun hiding behind the horizon. "I don't know why, but I'm worried about him. As much as he could be annoying he allowed Kakashi-sensei to teach me Rasengan and later Chidori. Also he is a rather good friend."

"You care about him because you think of him as friend." Itachi said and Sasuke looked at him. "Also he was one of the first people that looked at you like you were normal shinobi, not the Kami that touched the Earth."

"I guess you are right."

"I'm always right." Itachi said and on Sasuke forehead popped out a vein. "Don't be so rash, otouto."

"As if you were better." Sasuke laughed

"Touche." Itachi nodded and looked at Sasuke "Be careful as darker times come and Danzo might make a move to grab you. He is in uncomfortable situation and needs to get better cards."

"How real is that?"

"Not really real, but a it can happen." Itachi said "I shouldn't be telling that, but it's better that you know. I will try to protect you, but the next few days are going to be a nightmare."

Sasuke only nodded and looked at the sun and the village that was visible all around them. Scars that were the effect of the battle were visible almost everywhere.

o-0-o

"Konoha is weakened." Said cloaked person as he stood on something that looked like a giant finger chiseled out of stone. "Their Hokage is dead and they are in a state of war."

"What about their jinchuuriki?" Asked person that stood on the other of those pillars.

"Managed to take down Ichibi and later joined the battle, cutting down Orochimaru lackeys in hundreds. He is powerful, really powerful and dangerous."

"Sasori, Deidara I want you to take a look at Konoha and try to see what is going on there. If possible try to get their jinchuuriki."


	20. Chapter 20

**A/N – Finally there is a new chapter, took me a lot of time, but school, real life and the Prince of Asgard stole most of it. Also the fact that exams are looming over the horizon doesn't help too much. The next one will be hopefully before the end of this year…. or not. We will see.**

o-0-o

On the next day Naruto was up and running before the sun managed to rise high above the horizon as he would have a chain of meetings with whole lot of people. Most of them was leaders of various units or clan heads that he needed to have support of for the times to come. First on his timetable was man feared by many and hated by even more – Morino Ibiki.

"What did you dig up on Danzo?" Naruto asked as he looked at Ibiki.

"You, were right, Hokage-sama." Said Ibiki placing a thick folder on the table "He was actively plotting with our dear friends across the border. He is also a clever one and keeps his records in many weird places."

"You are sure that you weren't seen?" Naruto asked as he opened the folder.

"As sure as humanly possible." Ibiki said ans looked at Naruto "No disrespect, but I was playing this game when your father was a green jonin and I know how to make sure that I'm not seen or heard, unless I want to be."

"None taken." Naruto shrugged off and hummed quietly, thinking "What about civilian council?"

"They play their usual game and are trying to adapt, you were chosen to be a Hokage just yesterday and tomorrow you will be crowned. They do not know you yet, your approach to the issues in and out of the village. Give them a month or two and they will be back and plotting."

"There is also this war." Naruto pointed out, it was a topic that would be coming back in all of his talks.

"Yes, there is and it means them being more careful and being more willing to work with us." Ibiki said and added "You need to be careful as some might attempt to take you out, I would suggest keeping ANBU close to yourself."

"I plan on doing so." Naruto said "I'm not a fool, I'm young and inexperienced, but I'm not a guile one."

"I never said anything like that." Ibiki said "I just said what they think and what they might do."

"I know." Naruto nodded and looked at him. "Keep an eye on Danzo and deal with spies that they will be sending."

"I will." Ibiki said, slipping out of the room without making any unnecessary sound. This kid was an interesting one, but calling him a kid was a risky thing, he could take on a Kage level opponents and come out on top. Exhausted and nearly dead, but on top. He looked a lot like his ancestors and father that were carved on the Rock visible from the village. Serving him would be an honor.

o-0-o

"We need to attack Taki as soon as possible." Itachi said indicating a small, almost minor country with whole lot of power. "They have their water and Nanabi which can cause a lot of issues to us."

"Yes, but they do not have numbers or jutsu as Kusa or Ame have." Shikaku pointed out "I know that Naruto wants to start with Taki and there are merits in his choice, dealing early with bigger meals can help us."

"Kusa or Ame are the strongest ones out of their group and can be a problem for us, but we also need to fully mobilize our forces and wait for Daimyo to prepare his own." Itachi countered "While samurai won't be used that much, there is a lot of them and they can help us, also there are monks and they are dangerous foes. I would wait with bigger villages until we get better forces and give time for our allies to mobilize their forces."

"True." Shikaku and placed his finger on a point between border of Oto and Konoha "But we need to hold this location. It's an easiest access point into Oto and Kumo, without it we might have issues with moving troops around."

"Valley of End." Itachi mused "Pain to attack, yes, we need it and need it badly. Orochimaru had access to all of our secret plans and he can predict most of our actions. I would send a small and a very fast group to secure it and later send some jonin and chunin to reinforce it."

Shikaku nodded and looked at Itachi "Do you have any ideas about possible leader of such group?"

"Inuzuka Tsume or Hana." Itachi said and added after a moment "Or Kakashi as he is one of better jonin and good commander, but Inuzuka will be needed as they can use their noses to ferret out enemies."

"Hana is a bit too young and Tsume needs to stay in a village for few more days, while we need to send them now. Kakashi would be a good choice, but he would also tell them that it is a very important place for us. We need someone else, less obvious one." Shikaku said and his brows furrowed "How would sound Tora for you?"

"Powerful, fast and knows how to lead, not the best leader, but good enough." Itachi said "We could give him four squads of ANBU and maybe forty jonin, he should hold the lines long enough for the main force to get there."

"Yes." Shikaku nodded and closed his eyes for a moment. "Suna?"

"Far away and busy with their own issues." Itachi shrugged off "Can wait for some time, we also have kids of their previous Kage, so they should easily agree to a truce, or a more permanent deal."

"Or Iwa will be pushing for a continuation of a war between us." Shikaku pointed out

"Yes and no." Itachi said "Onoki is getting old and I would say softer, he isn't as bloodthirsty as he used to be and he knows that we can easily beat his trump cards without too much of an effort. He will wait and see what will be the result of this war, he won't play his cards until he is sure he can win."

"Or has a really high chance to win." Shikaku said "You are right about it, Iwa is silent and will be watching, but won't move. At least not for now as they know that we can roll right through them in few weeks. Kumo and Kiri have a lot of shinobi and when they will fully mobilize, Iwa will be outnumbered over ten to one. If I were Onoki I would suggest an agreement to us or Kumo, so that they know that we won't crash into them."

"He knows that well and he knows that Naruto is strong, not on the level of his Tou-san or even Sandaime-sama, but he is getting there and he isn't the lone high A-rank, low S-rank that we can field. But Iwa council isn't known for their intelligence and they might block any such deals, at least until they will see our armies close to their border." Itachi said

"Fair point." Shikaku nodded "But still, Iwa being silent isn't a good thing. They might be plotting and the really last thing that we need is them crashing on us or even Kumo, which would heavily change odds."

"Yes." Itachi said and looked at the map. "We have advantage that our village is far away from borders and we can fall back if needed. Kusa, Ame or Taki need to defend every single meter of their lands or they will lose and won't be able to push back."

"True, but we do not have any supply basis close to the border and we will need to build them before any serious strike." Shikaku pointed out "And it will take precious time and resources that we need also at other places."

"What about using army bases that are by the border?" Itachi frowned "When I was an ANBU, we usually operated from them."

"They do not have necessary supplies for it." Shikaku said "And are not where we want them, while samurai prefer flatlands and open fights, we run through the forests. Their bases are in spots strategically sound from their point of view, from our not much. It would cut our lines by a considerable percentage, but not one that we would truly feel."

"So what about a quick strike to slow them down and allow us to deal with other things?" Itachi suggested "If we are going to be convincing enough about it, it might throw them out and allow us to finish Oto which is far away from them and is the easiest one."

"It would work." Shikaku agreed "But than, we can overextended ourselves and end up with a siege of our village."

"Which won't be a bad thing." Itachi said with predatory smirk "We will let them come and we will crush them between the walls and units that are in the field. Also we can use Kiri and Kumo forces for this strike, or even forces given by Daimyo-sama."

"Yes." Shikaku nodded "It would be a really good thing, as we could pin them down against the walls, or even lure them into a maze behind them and kill them one by one."

"Death by a thousand of cuts. Painful and slow, but works in every situation and in this case we have a perfect opportunity to bleed them off as they want to avenge their lost ones. Avenger usually doesn't think clearly, which makes him prone to mistakes and illusions."

"With Tora being sent to the Valley of the End, than who would be a good idea for a leader of our strike force against those villages?" Shikaku asked

"How would sound for you sending Hokage-sama as their leader." Itachi said "To make it convincing and believable to them."

"Not bad, but also not the best choice that I can think of. I would send Kakashi or you, as both of you is known and very powerful shinobi. So it would sound believable to them and some might be too afraid to fight. Also Hokage-sama needs to stay behind in the village to be a leader during a siege."

"True" Itachi nodded "He is a beacon that keeps us united and he will be better used as a thing that keeps us united and leader, than a frontline commander. He is a powerful shinobi, but we do not lack them and our allies have also scores of them. We better use him as a leader, than a commander."

"What about ROOT?" Shikaku asked, bringing the last and the most sensitive part of their discussion.

"They are problematic." Itachi said and sighed "They are loyal only to Danzo, not the village and are a liability on the field of battle. We need to do something about them as they might be a dagger plunged into our back when we least expect it."

"Suicidal missions?" Shikaku suggested and saw Itachi's narrowed eyes. "While I do not like them, I can't find any better solution of our problem. We need something done about them and wasting them is an even worse than sacrificing them on the field of battle."

"I can see your point." Itachi said and winced "It's just that I do not particularly like sacrifice people because they are different, I lost too much because of it. But this is the best idea that we probably can come up with."

"Not only you." Shikaku nodded "But that is a life of commander and we need to make such decisions keeping in mind goals of Konohagakure and on second place are our personal and clan goals." He looked at the papers and scrolls covering the table between them "I will present what we came up with to Hokage-sama and knowing him get it approved. In the meantime I want you to try to find all of ROOT ANBU that are in Konoha. Danzo isn't stupid, but he might try to remove Hokage-sama so it's better to be safe than sorry."

"Yes" Itachi agreed "He would have a perfect moment to take over this position as we are in disarray and not many would notice change of government and one that would, would be marked as nukenin and killed. He has his guards around him, but few more won't hurt and I will join them." Itachi stood up and disappeared from the room. Leaving Shikaku with finishing plans and presenting them to their leader, which could be a dangerous thing.

o-0-o

Moods in the council chamber in Iwagakure no Sato were grim, not many expected such turn of events and it seemed as if the next great war was upon them. Konoha allied with Kiri and Kumo much to their surprise was marching to war against Oto which was allied with Suna, Taki, Ame and Kusa. Nobody expected such turn of events and now they were caught unprepared and not aligned to any of major camps.

"We need to support Suna in their war against Konoha!" One of councilors shouted

"And get destroyed in reply?" Akatsuchi shouted back "Suna already lost this war and even with our support they wouldn't win it, they would extend it, but not win. Also they have five jinchuuriki, including the three strongest ones. So if you want to commit suicide attack them, but I'm not a fool and prefer not get my troops killed."

"Konoha is weakened by that attack during the exam and is a prime target!"

"We won't attack Konoha!" Onoki interrupted before anybody else could say a word, he was listening to their blabbering and was getting annoyed by it. "I'm not for supporting nukenin and traitors so we won't support Oto in their war, also their new Hokage is a person that you do not want to make furious."

"Who is he?" Someone asked

"Senju Naruto, Son of Konoha no Kiroii Senko Namikaze Minato." Onoki said with a thin smile and watched expressions of shock and horror on faces of most of the council. Only his bodyguards weren't surprised by it as they were in Konoha with him. "So I do not think that any attack against Konoha is wise, unless you want to repeat that failure of a mission."

"We need to kill him before he will be even more powerful than he already is!" One of more hot-headed councilors shouted.

Onoki only tilted his head in curiosity, not sure if he heard it right. "Since when murdering a Kate was an approved custom when outside of the state of war? And the last thing that we need is to cause even more bad air between other powers and us. We won't attack Konoha or their allies, instead Akatsuchi you will go to Konoha and offer mutual treaties of non-agression and trade agreements. We need their money and they need peace on their border."

"Of course, Tsuchikage-sama." Nodded Akatsuchi "What about their teams that will wander onto our lands?"

"If close to the border ignore and provide support, if too far into the country return, but do not attack." Onoki said "Meeting adjourned and you are dismissed."

o-0-o

"So you want to secure Valley of the End as soon as possible?" Naruto asked as he looked at Shikaku

"Yes, Hokage-sama." Nodded scarred jonin commander "We need that place secured as it can be an anchor for any potential strike into Oto, but also it will keep our communication lines with Kumo open and safe."

"Which on its own is worth any losses." Kakashi added "They have the biggest army in out of the Great Five and once they will mobilize it, we will be able to launch a powerful offensive. But even without all of them, some of their troops will give us an edge over our enemies in chosen spots. So keeping those lines open and our movements hidden is worth the trouble."

"I can see your reasoning." Naruto nodded "And I like an idea of sending Yamato to secure it as he knows his job and he is one that would hold them at all cost."

"Exactly." Shikaku said as he looked at Naruto "That's why we suggest him as a leader of that group as he is powerful enough to take part in serious duels, as well as intelligent enough to fight in a good way. Ideally I would suggest Itachi, Kakashi or myself to lead the group there, but we are needed here as we are heads of clans and our support here is more worth than our presence at the front lines."

Naruto grimaced as he thought about those words, he knew that they were true, but knowing one thing was a tad different than accepting it. "How soon can we expect Kiri and Kumo support to reach us?"

"That is a good question." Kakashi nodded "First groups should be here in a day or two, but they will be mostly SHARKS or other similar formations, while for line troops we will need to wait a week or two. Nobody keeps their full forces mobilized, norm is between ten and twenty percent mobilized at all times, so they need a week or so to mobilize them and send them here. Sooner will be a miracle."

"Kumo will be even later as they have a longer road to travel." Shikaku added "Closer to two weeks, than one and they do not have a direct access to our lands. They will need to pass through two small countries that are between them and us."

"That can be a problem." Naruto winced and looked at the map "How soon can we get the whole army mobilized?"

Shikaku, Itachi and Kakashi exchanged glances until Shikaku sighed. "Between two and three weeks with Daimyo-sama forces. Without them within a week we will have whole army ready and armed. Noble clans are already prepared or the major one as we mobilized them before the exams and only the lesser ones and the rest of our shinobi needs to be called to service or return from longer missions."

"ANBU and oinin are already mobilized and were before the Exam." Itachi added "While training of some wasn't up to my expectations it is being solved as we speak and they will be ready in few days to carry out any missions we will be assigned."

"Daimyo-sama is always an unknown, but in this case he might be fast." Kakashi said "You are his distant cousin and this turns this whole war into a personal matter for him. So he will get him army as fast as he can get them and they won't be merciful."

"I see." Naruto said and looked at the doors leading into his office "I think that you might call them, there is no point in torturing them for much longer."

o-0-o

Ino looked around the hall in the Hokage Tower a bit fearfully, she didn't know why she had been summoned and it looked that she wasn't the only one summoned as the rest of their group from the exams was also there.

"Any idea why we are here?" She asked as she looked at Sasuke. Younger Uchiha out of the two, changed during the time following the exam, he seemed to be more confident and focused. As well as more calm, she knew that he and Itachi talked a lot. But there was something else that had happened to him.

"No" He grunted, his eyes focused on the doors in front of them with two ANBU that weren't keen on letting them inside. They were standing there like two statues, but their moving eyes showed that they were aware of their surroundings and awake. Also most likely they wouldn't have a single issue with stopping any assasins that would have reached the room.

"Most likely the council or Hokage-sama wants something from us." Shikamaru said as he opened his eyes "There are not many reasons to be summoned here and especially now with Hokage and his advisors being busy with thousands of things as the war is upon us."

"Well said, Shika." Said an older male that slipped into the room. Two ANBU nodded to him, showing him respect and relaxing a bit. As if he was a familiar person to them and one that had an unrestricted access to the office behind them.

"It is the only logical thing that can be a reason for this summon." Shikamaru said as he opened his eyes "So don't annoy me, Tou-san."

"I don't know what do you mean." Shikaku said and looked at Ino "You were summoned here because of the recent chunin exam and the results of them. You had managed to impress me and several other jonin, but what will be the effect you will learn from Hokage-sama."

"Troublesome" Shikamaru sighed and muttered "Promotion and even more responsibilities that come with it, I don't know what is so special about it."

"I'm here as Hokage-sama wishes to see you." Shikaku said and looked at the ANBU, they moved aside and let them pass. He opened doors and led them inside.

Ino looked around the office and saw that inside of it stood their jonin sensei, Jiraiya-sama and Itachi as well as Naruto sat in his chair behind the massive desk, most of which was covered in hundreds of maps and papers.

"You probably wonder why I summoned you here." He said as he looked at them. She could see thin rings around his eyes and the hat that laid on the desk said who he was. He was their new Hokage and he was working for a long time. "The reason is simple, chunin exams or more properly results of it." He paused and looked at Shikaku "If you could be so kind to enlighten them."

"Of course, Hokage-sama." Older Nara nodded and looked at them. Ino could see some sort of pride in his eyes. "We had revived mission reports, reviews from the exercise before the exams and results of exams and we had reached the conclusion that all of you deserve a promotion to chunin. You will keep working in the same squads as you were working as genin, there is no point in destroying the team chemistry that you had worked out. Only exception will be a Team Seven, but that will be later."

He paused for a moment and let those words sink in.

"All of you made Konoha proud during the exams and you had impressed me and the judges that reviewed your performance. While the exams didn't reach their end due to the invasion that had happened during them. You were the ones that caught our attention and that's why you were chosen for promotion and you are the newest chunin of Konohagakure no Sato since today. You have three days to celebrate and after that you need to report for duty." He paused for a moment and looked at them. "Excluding Team Seven you are dismissed."

o-0-o

"You probably wonder why you need to stay?" Naruto asked with a grin as he looked at Sasuke and Hinata. They looked at each other and shrugged. He smirked as he saw their reaction "The reason is simple, I like you and I know how to work with you. So since now on we will work together as a one squad with Itachi joining us on a permanent basis. As well as Ero-sennin helping from time to time."

"It's an honor." Sasuke said and paused "But why us, you could have chosen any jonin or ANBU you wished to and they wouldn't say no to you."

"They wouldn't say no, that's true." Naruto nodded and looked at them "But I like you and I trust you more than them. So I want someone that I can trust to watch my back, also most of jonin tends to be a bit nervous when they are in the presence of their Kage." Last words he said with a grin.

Jiraiya cleared his throat and they looked at him. "There is also that matter that for the next few weeks you will be mostly brokering deals and heirs of two of the most powerful or respected clans have a greater weight than jonins. They show that you treat your partner seriously and that will be important."

"There's also that." Naruto nodded "So you have something like a week of rest until I will be going somewhere so have fun and train as the missions will be far harder than ones that we were on. Maybe Kiri could be compared to be on the same level."

"Be on the Training Ground One in the morning and we will start more serious training." Kakashi said "I can see logic behind Naruto's words and I plan to prepare you for the things to come, but it will be hard and daunting training. One that you won't like, but it will make you stronger and better."

"You are officially dismissed and you can do whatever you can do for now." Naruto waved his hand and their disappeared in _Shunshin_. He turned to look at his two friends/mentors and now advisers. "How did I do?"

"Not the worst one that I had seen." Kakashi said "You remind me a great deal about your father. He always remembered about his squad when he was a Hokage."

"But we need to finish planning the first stage of our offensive." Itachi cut in and pointed at the maps covering the desk.

"Right" Naruto sighed and focused back on them. It was going to be a long, even a really long day for him, one of many to come. But than, he should have expected that when he was chosen as a Hokage by the village or the leadership of it, at least.

o-0-o

 _darkhuntressxir - 'Akatsuki on the moves, bringing more things to handle..'_ – yes, they are on the move, but they are also relatively toothless. True, they have still some formidable shinobi, but there is only seven of them and they won't stand a chance against things that now surround Naruto.


End file.
